LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



ifjap Cqnjr'mfjl 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



OR 



STUDIES OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH 



BY 



HENRY C. VEDDER 




MIL 13189*. 



PHILADELPHIA 

AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY 
1420 Chestnut Street 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1894, by the 
AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



CONTENTS 



Introductory — the fullness of the time. 9 
PART I 

THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

I. The Spirit Given to the Church. . . 21 

II. The Healing of the Lame Man. ... 28 

III. The Beginning of Persecution. ... 32 

IV. The Christian Brotherhood. ... 37 

V. The Church Organized 41 

VI. Stephen, the First Martyr 46 

PART II 
THE GOSPEL IN ASIA 

VII. Christianity Becomes a Missionary 

Religion 55 

VIII. Philip and the Eunuch. . 60 

IX. The Conversion of Saul 66 

X. The Gentiles Receive the Gospel. . . 71 

XI. A Year at Antioch 76 

XII. The First Foreign Missionaries. . . 81 

XIII. The First Missionary Tour. .... 86 

XIV. The Council of Jerusalem 92 

3 



4 CONTENTS 

PART III 
THE GOSPEL IN EUROPE 

PAGE 

XV. The Second Missionary Tour — First 

Part. , . 101 

XVI. The Second Missionary Tour — Second 

Part 108 

XVII. Paul at Ephesus 114 

XVIII. The Third Missionary Tour. . . . . 121 

XIX. Paul at Jerusalem . . 128 

XX. Paul at Cesarea 134 

XXI. The Voyage and Shipwreck 140 

XXII. The First Roman Imprisonment. . . . 145 

PART IV 
ESTABLISHING THE CHURCHES 

XXIII. Paul's Closing Years. . , . . . . 155 

XXIV. Paul's Companions. . . . . . . . 160 

XXV. John, the Beloved 166 

XXVI. Peter the Rock 171 

XXVII. James, the Lord's Brother. .... 178 

XXVIII. Christian Life in the Apostolic Age. . 183 

XXIX. Christianity at the End of the Apos- 
tolic Era 180 

XXX. Distinctive New Testament Teachings. 194 

Appendix . 201 



PREFACE 



"Of making many books there is no end" ; why add 
another to the numerous studies of the Acts of the Apostles ? 
This pertinent question, which will suggest itself to every one 
who reads the title of this volume, must be answered by the 
volume itself. If it cannot justify its existence by merely 
being what it is, no apology can prolong its life. Still, a 
word explanatory of the author' s purpose may not be super- 
fluous. It has long seemed to him that no study of the book 
of the Acts has been made suited to the use of laymen, 
young people, and students, whose main end was the exposi- 
tion of the principles and polity of the New Testament church. 
Much exposition of the kind, of course, is to be found in 
commentaries like Hackett's, and in books like Clark's 
"Harmony"; but the exposition is incidental, ancillary to 
the author's main purpose. It has seemed that there is room 
for a book constructed on a new plan, in which the work of 
the literary critic and the commentator should be presup- 
posed ; a book historical in aim and spirit, but not assigning 
equal prominence to every event in the apostolic history ; 
a book ; in fine, that should be at once an account of the 

5 



6 



PREFACE 



origin and progress of the apostolic churches and a practical 
treatise on their polity. 

That a book of this kind might be of great service among 
Baptists, will probably be admitted. If we have any justifi- 
cation for a separate denominational existence, it is because 
loyalty to the New Testament teaching regarding the church 
compels us to stand apart from other Christians. We are 
accustomed to state our distinctive principles in something 
like this form : The Scriptures, the supreme and all-sufficient 
rule of faith and practice ; the church, a spiritual body, con- 
sisting only of the regenerate ; baptism, the immersion of a 
believer on profession of his faith ; the Lord's Supper, the 
communion of those thus baptized with their Lord and with 
each other ; each church independent as to its internal af- 
fairs, but all the churches mutually interdependent and united 
in all good works ; the absolute right of every man to wor- 
ship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, 
without molestation, so long as he does not interfere with 
the peace and good order of society. These things are dis- 
tinctive Baptist principles, however, only because we believe 
them to be distinctive New Testament teachings. The object 
of this book is to show the grounds of that belief, by a care- 
ful and candid study of apostolic times, in the full light of 
the latest biblical and historical scholarship. 

These studies were originally published serially in 1 ' The 
Baptist Union," of Chicago, and the course was taken by 
over five thousand young people connected with the Baptist 
Young People's Union of America. They have been care- 



PREFACE 7 

fully revised with the assistance of several competent schol- 
ars, and freed from many imperfections incident to the 
method of first publication. The author ventures to hope 
that in their present form their usefulness may be much 
further extended, and that they may assist many pastors in 
grounding their young people in a sound knowledge of the 
scriptural sources whence are drawn the principles and prac- 
tices of the Baptist churches. 

With a view to making the book additionally useful to 
students, the references to supplementary reading at the end 
of each lesson have been materially increased since the first 
publication. Every one who uses this book is strongly rec- 
ommended to read in connection with it one or more of the 
following : Conybeare and Howson' s ' ' Life and Epistles of St. 
Paul ; ' ' Stalker' s ' ' Life of St. Paul ; ' ' Farrar' s ' ' Life and 
Epistles of St. Paul ; " Dr. William M. Taylor's "Paul, the 
Missionary." These will be generally referred to by the 
names of the authors only. Another book, whose rarity and 
high price put it beyond the reach of most readers, yet is of 
very great value, is Lewin' s ' ' Life and Epistles of St. Paul, 
remarkable for its profuse archaeological illustrations of the 
text. It would have been easy to multiply references ; the 
aim has been to help the reader, not to exhibit the author's 
acquaintance with biblical literature. 



ANNOUNCEMENT 



To the Baptist Young People of America : 

This book forms an extension of a series of studies published 
in " The Baptist Union " in 18Q3-94, under the head of the 
Sacred Literature Course. At the request of the Executive 
Committee of the Baptist Young People 's Union of Ajnerica, 
they are embodied in this permanent form, in order that stu- 
dents who desire to take up the Christian Culture Courses may 
have access to them. 

A very large number of stude7its followed them as they 
were published in the columns of the paper, and over i, 100 
presented successful exami?iation papers in May, 1894. 
The universal testimony of \the pastors and young people' s 
workers who have followed them has been that Mr. Vedder' s 
articles were exceedingly stimulating and infonning, and 
have awakened a large appetite a?nong their young people for 
more thorough study of the Scripture history and the princi- 
ples of our Christian faith. 

It gives 7ne pleasure, therefore, to commend the volume, and 
to bespeak for it the favorable consideration of pastors and 
those who are planning for the Christian culture of our Baptist 
young people. 

Yours sincerely, 

FRANK L. WILKINS, Gen. Sec. 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



INTRODUCTORY 

THE FULLNESS OF THE TIME 

In Judaism. — The Church of Christ began its career at 
a time especially favorable to its rapid growth. The Script- 
ures teach that ' ' when the fullness of the time was come, 
God sent forth his Son," and history confirms the saying. 
Had Jesus appeared in the earlier ages of the world, he 
would have had no hearing outside of his own tribe or 
nation. He would have had no hearing at all : his mild 
voice, exhorting men to peace, love, and righteousness, 
would have been drowned in the wild din of savage wars, 
and the Light of the world would have been extinguished in 
blood. Had he appeared in the earlier history of Judaism, 
his followers would have been crushed out by persecution or 
would have remained an obscure Jewish sect. The state of 
Judaism about A. D. 30 was more favorable for the spread 
of Christianity than any time before or later. Rome's 
policy toward conquered nations, though firm, was generally 
liberal, but it was particularly considerate toward the Jews. 
The emperor declined to meddle with their religion, but was 
content with placing over them a procurator and exacting 
the payment of a tribute little more than nominal. The San- 

9 



io the; dawn of Christianity 

hedrin was still supreme in questions of faith and practice, 
yet this body lacked supreme power in the State, and there- 
fore could not crush out a heresy with the old-time vigor, 
or the work of Jesus and his apostles would have been 
ended before it had fairly begun. They could only perse- 
cute in a fitful and illegal fashion. Thus the gospel 
preached by the apostles had an opportunity to make its 
way among the Jews by its own intrinsic worth and spiritual 
power, such as was offered at no other time. 

Moreover, the diaspora, or dispersion of the Jews through- 
out the world had already begun. This was completed by 
the destruction of Jerusalem, a generation later ; but the 
spirit of commercial enterprise and the love of wealth 
characteristic of Israel and his descendants, had already led 
them abroad ; until, at this time, every Roman city had a 
Jewish population gathered in a distinctively Jewish quarter. 
To these the apostles went first ; often they obtained a hearing, 
and for the most part won converts. There was also a large 
class of " devout" persons among the Gentiles, less stub- 
born in their Jewish prejudices and ready to hear the gospel 
of Jesus. The importance to the apostolic churches of these 
converts from Judaism is often overlooked in the study of 
this period. 

Another favorable circumstance was the bitter rivalry 
between Pharisees and Sadducees. Had the Jewish nation, 
or those who should have been and were reputed to be its 
leaders, been a unit, they would have made short work of 
the religion preached by the apostles. Divided as they 
were at this period, persecution was only half-hearted. Few 
preachers of Jesus were put to death ; the rest were driven 



THE FULLNESS OF THE TIME 



1 1 



from Jerusalem. While the Sanhedrin was flattering itself 
that it had stamped out this dangerous fire of heresy, it had 
only scattered its embers throughout the Roman world, 
and wherever the sparks fell they found fuel ready to be 
ignited. 

In Heathendom. — The influence of Judaism had 
made itself strongly felt upon the other nations, and the 
thoughtful men of all lands were feeling their way toward 
monotheism. The masses were still superstitious devotees 
of a multitude of gods, but the cultivated had ceased to be- 
lieve in them. Among the Romans, religion had become a 
mere piece of statecraft, a useful j uggle to deceive the vulgar 
but scorned by the intelligent. As Gibbon says, all religions 
were considered by the people equally true ; by the philoso- 
phers equally false ; by the magistrates equally expedient. 
In Greece, men had made culture their god, and all that the 
graces of art and literature and the light of genius could do 
for man had been done — and the emptiness of it all was 
most apparent to the most cultured. Heathendom was fast 
falling into a state of utter hopelessness. The horror of a 
great darkness settled down like a pall over the pagan 
world. How deep this gloom was we can best learn from 
the words of those whom the pagan world esteemed its 
wisest and its noblest. "Whom the gods love die young," 
wrote the poet Menander. Pliny is more hopeless still : 
"Every one," he says, bitterly, "should quiet his heart 
with the thought that the greatest gift nature affords is an 
early death ; and the best of it is, every man can procure 
this for himself." Says Cicero: "Not to have been born 
were best, the earliest possible death the next best." 



i2 the; dawn of Christianity 



Sophocles, of all ancient poets the nearest in moral serenity 
and wholeness to our own Shakespeare, says : 

Ah, race of mortal men, 

How as a thing of naught 
I count ye, though ye live; 

For who is there of men 
That more of blessing knows 

Than just a little while 
To seem to prosper well, 

And having seemed, to fall ? 

In strict accord with such words were the acts of that gen- 
eration. Many a noble Roman cut with his own sword the 
Gordian knot of existence, rather than live a life that seemed 
to him no longer worth living. 

But if the pagan' s ideas of this life were thus gloomy, his 
anticipation of the life to come was darker still. The 
heathen world died without hope. A shattered pillar, a lyre 
with its strings snapped and its music silenced forever, a 
rosebud crushed, beauty and fragrance alike departed — these 
were the sad emblems with which the Greeks and Romans 
denoted death. No thought that death was the gateway into 
a fuller and more glorious life assuaged the pangs of parting 
or cheered the mourner's heart. The future life, when 
believed in at all, was conceived as something cheerless and 
joyless, not to be desired save as a relief from the burdens 
of this life. Achilles says to Ulysses, when the latter meets 
him in the world of shades : 

Rather would I, in the sun's warmth divine 

Serve some poor churl who drags his days in grief, 
Than the whole lordship of the dead were mine. 



THE FULLNESS OF THE TIME 



13 



Such was the dreary future to which paganism assigned its 
bravest and noblest. As Archbishop Trench aptly says : 
' ' The whole period was the ' hour and power of darkness ' ; 
the world was again in chaos, and the creative words, ' Let 
there be light,' though just about to be spoken as yet were 
not uttered. ' ' A study of pagan literature shows how true 
it is that life and immortality were brought to light only 
through Jesus Christ. 

There was another side to the spiritual state of the pagan 
world, however. Amid all this despair and skepticism there 
was an intense yearning for the truth. The best and purest 
men everywhere were longing for something better than 
philosophy had to offer them. There was a spiritual hunger, 
widespread and intense, for something that would satisfy 
man's craving for the good, some atonement for man's sin, 
some help for man' s weakness. * ' We will wait, ' ' says 
Plato, in words almost prophetic, "till one shall come, be 
he a god or an inspired man, to teach us in holy things and 
take the darkness from our eyes." Men were blindly feel- 
ing out in the darkness after God if haply they might find 
him. When men of such aspirations heard the gospel, it 
" found " them ; to the claims of Jesus Christ they responded 
with hearts both joyful and worshipful, "My Lord and my 
God." 

In the Roman World. — The political and social con- 
dition of the world at this time greatly favored the spread of 
the gospel. Rome had conquered the world by her arms, 
Greece by her culture. The one had united the world in a 
vast military empire, the other had given to this empire a 
universal language. The fact that all men had drunk at the 



14 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



same fount of learning and owed allegiance to the same gov- 
ernment, was a bond of unity such as the world had never 
known before. It was a time of profound peace. During 
the reign of Augustus the doors of the temple of Janus were 
closed for the first time in centuries, and the heathen world 
came near realizing the vision of the Christian poet who 
sings of the time when 

The war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle flags were furl'd 
In the parliament of man, the federation of the world. 

Travel had never been so general nor so easy. The armies 
of Rome had not only achieved conquests, but had also in- 
troduced order and promoted means of communication. Until 
quite modern times, no age was known when so great a part 
of the world could be traversed with such speed and safety. 
The roads made for Rome' s legions to march to war served 
as highways for the envoys of the Prince of Peace. The ships 
that brought corn from far Asia to feed and quiet the rabble 
of Rome, brought also the bread of life to a perishing world. 
Roman law gave such protection to person and property as 
had never been known before. Many of the early Christians 
were, like Paul, Roman citizens ; and they could not be 
condemned without a trial, and had the right of appeal to 
Caesar. The ground on which the early Christians were 
condemned under Roman law, was treason to the State ; and 
this was a false charge, resting on a misapprehension. 
That all these conditions for the spread of the gospel should 
have come about by chance is incredible ; they must have 
been marshalled by intelligence and purpose — in other 
words, by Providence. 



THE SOURCES OE THE HISTORY 



*5 



THE SOURCES OF THE HISTORY. 

I<uke and his I/ife. — Luke is mentioned by name in 
only three places in the New Testament. In Col. 4 : 14, he 
is called "Luke, the beloved physician," and a comparison 
of this reference with ver. 1 1 warrants the conclusion that he 
was not a Jew. The other passages are Philem. 24, and 
2 Tim. 4': 11. It is said by Eusebius that he was a native 
of Antioch, and his name suggests a Greek origin. That he 
was a physician marks him as a man of exceptional educa- 
tion for his times, for there was then a medical college at 
Rome, charged with the duty of examining and licensing 
physicians in every city in the empire ; and its supervision 
was by no means nominal. With the exception of Paul, he 
appears to have had a better education than any other New 
Testament writer, and he was better entitled than even Paul 
himself to be called a man of culture. Of all Paul's compan- 
ions and co-laborers, Luke seems to have been the most 
valued, since it is all but certain that he is the "brother" 
described in 2 Cor. 8 : 1 8-20, ' ' whose praise in the gospel 
is spread through all the churches." 

Luke's intimate acquaintance with Jewish customs and 
doctrines makes it probable that he became a proselyte to 
Judaism before his conversion to Christianity. When that 
conversion occurred we can only conjecture, but it must have 
been some time before he appears in the apostolic history. 
We first hear of him, and then not by name, when he joins 
Paul at Troas (Acts 16 : 8-10), and the narrative suddenly 
changes from the third to the first person. Hitherto the 
writer had been the historian of deeds in which, apparently, 



1 6 the; dawn of Christianity 

he had borne no part ; now he records what he himself wit- 
nessed and shared. He accompanied the apostle, we again 
infer from the internal evidence of his writings, to Philippi, 
and there remained during the second missionary journey of 
Paul ; at least he did not rejoin the apostle until Paul reached 
Troas, in the course of his third missionary journey. If Luke 
was not actually separated from Paul all this time, he does 
not appear to have been the companion of his travels and 
labors. That he remained with Paul during the long im- 
prisonment at Caesarea is a fair inference ; certainly he ac- 
companied the apostle on the voyage to Rome, and remained 
with him during the first imprisonment (Col. 4:11, 14). 
We may also conjecture that on Paul's release, Luke contin- 
ued with him ; for, during the second imprisonment, shortly 
before his martyrdom, the apostle writes: "Only Luke is 
with me, ' ' a tribute to the beloved physician' s constancy, never 
to be forgotten. After the death of Paul, we have no knowl- 
edge of Luke, save some vague and conflicting tradi- 
tions. 

Irtike and his Writings. — By the general consent of 
ancient Christendom the third Gospel and the Acts of 
the Apostles are ascribed to Luke, though his name nowhere 
appears in them as the author. The two books were evi- 
dently written by the same person, as a careful study of their 
style establishes. Luke, more nearly than any other New 
Testament writer, appproaches the correctness and purity of 
the classical Greek. His style is remarkable for picturesque- 
ness ; trained as a physician to habits of close observation, 
he sees and records with unusual accuracy. 

The integrity and credibility of Luke's writings have been 



THE SOURCES OF THE HISTORY 1 7 

questioned by some modern critics, but they have success- 
fully borne the test. One of the chief testimonies to the his- 
torical accuracy of the Acts is the series of undesigned coin- 
cidences between its text and the epistles of Paul, so well set 
forth in Paley's " Horse Paulinae." No critic has attempted 
to refute this argument, though some have tried to break its 
force and disparage its value. It is the general view, how- 
ever, that it establishes the genuineness of the Pauline Epistles 
as well as of the Acts, since no forged documents could thus 
fit into each other. 

Though called the Acts of the Apostles from ancient times, 
it does not appear that this title was chosen for the book by 
the author. ' ' The Acts of Jesus ' ' would suit his purpose 
better, since he declares in the preface that his Gospel was a 
record of ' 1 all that Jesus began both to do and to teach ' ' , 
showing that his purpose in this book was to show how Jesus 
continued to do and to teach through his disciples. That the 
mission of Paul to the Gentiles should form the bulk of the 
history of the origin and progress of the early church, was 
due as well to the importance of this work as to any personal 
predilections the writer may be presumed to have had. The 
Acts may have been written from time to time during the 
missionary tours of Luke ; indeed, some parts of the book 
seem to have been copied with very little change from a con- 
temporary journal, or record of events. In its present form, 
the narrative was probably published during the first impris- 
onment of Paul. No other supposition satisfactorily accounts 
for the sudden breaking off ; the writer evidently told no 
more because there was no more just then to tell, and if he 
had a purpose of completing his record, he was never able 

B 



1 8 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 

to carry it out. If this theory is accepted as probably cor- 
rect, the date of the Acts must be assigned to about 63 A. D. 

LITERATURE. 
On the preparation of the world for the spread of the church, see 
Fisher, " History of the Christian Church," chap. I ; also his " Be- 
ginnings of Christianity," chaps. 1-8; Neander's "History of the 
Christian Church," vol. I., pp. 5 - 68 ; SchafFs " History of the 
Christian Church," vol. I., pp. 146-162; Geikie's "Life and Words 
of Christ," vol. II., pp. 223-228; Edersheim's " Life and Times of 
Jesus the Messiah," book I. ; much valuable information is contained 
in Dollinger's " Jew and Gentile in the Courts of the Lord." A good 
general introduction to the whole history is chap. I. Conybeare and 
Howson's " Life and Epistles of St. Paul." On Luke and his 
writings, see the introductions to Hackett's and Meyer's " Commenta- 
ries on Acts " ; Godet's " Commentary on Luke " ; Smith's " Dic- 
tionary of the Bible," articles " Luke, Gospel of," and " Acts of the 
Apostles " ; Weiss' " Biblical Theology of the New Testament," vol. 
II., pp. 291-296. " The Medical Language of St. Luke," by William 
Kirk Hobart (London, 1882), is almost a demonstration that the 
third Gospel and the Acts were written by the same person. 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
1 . What traces of Jewish influence are found in Luke's writings ? 
2. Make an analysis of the book of Acts. 3. The speeches in the 
book — are they reports of what was said, with substantial verbal cor- 
rectness ? or do they give us only the substance of what was said in 
Luke's words ? 



PART I 

FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH 

"Witnesses. . . in Jerusalem." 
A. D. 30-35. 



I. 



THE SPIRIT GIVEN TO THE CHURCH. 

In all our Lord's recorded teachings, he mentions the 
church (ecclesia) but twice, and these two references (Matt. 
16:18; 18:17) occur toward the close of his ministry. In 
both instances the church is spoken of as a future and not as 
a present institution. The church potentially existed from 
the day when two disciples of John the Baptist followed Jesus 
and believed on him as the Messiah (John 1 : 35—40) ; but 
of actual existence as an organized society of believers dur- 
ing the life of Jesus there is not so much as a trace in the 
four Gospels. Jesus had much to say to his followers about 
the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God, of its nature 
and laws ; but of the institution by which that kingdom was 
to be realized ani extended among men, he said noticeably 
little. He left his followers no directions for their organiza- 
tion, no rules for their government ; all this was to be worked 
out under the leadership of the promised Comforter, who 
should guide them into all the truth. 

Waiting for the Promise.— For forty days after his res- 
urrection Jesus continued to show himself to his disciples be- 
fore his ascension. He commanded his disciples not to de- 
part from Jerusalem until they should receive the promised 
baptism of the Holy Ghost (Acts I : 1-5). After this they 
were to go and disciple all the nations (Matt. 28 : 19, 20). 
Obedient to their Lord, they gathered in "the upper cham- 

21 



22 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



ber, where they were abiding," and there "with one accord 
continued steadfastly in prayer" (Acts i : 12-14). While 
thus waiting, at the suggestion of Peter the vacancy among 
the twelve apostles caused by the 'treason and suicide of 
Judas, was filled by the choice of Matthias, by lot (Acts 1 : 
1 5-26). This transaction is so related by Luke as to leave 
us in doubt whether it is approved. In this waiting of the 
apostles for the descent of the Holy Spirit, we see prefigured 
the nature of the church of Christ. It is to be composed of 
those born of the Spirit, who serve Christ under the continual 
guidance of the Spirit. Spirituality is its first and most strik- 
ing, as well as its fundamental characteristic. 

The Spirit Bestowed. — The Jewish feast of Pentecost, 
as the name implies, fell the fifteenth day ' ' from the morrow 
after the Sabbath " of the Passover (Lev. 23 : 15, 16). It is 
difficult to decide on what day of the week it fell. One 
method of computation (which Dr. Hackett follows in his 
commentary), would make Pentecost fall upon the Sabbath 
or Saturday ; Id ut the uniform tradition of the Christian 
church from the earliest times favors Sunday, and it is pos- 
sible to compute the time in agreement with this tradition. 
Pentecost was ' ' the feast of harvest " (Exod. 23 : 16); and two 
loaves of the finest wheat flour, the first-fruits of a completed 
harvest, were commanded to be offered before God on that 
day. In its social features, the day resembled the English 
" harvest home " and our own Thanksgiving Day. It was 
reckoned one of the three great feasts, and Jews from many 
lands gathered at Jerusalem to celebrate it. No occasion 
could have been more fitting for the bestowal of the Holy 
Spirit upon the disciples. This bestowal, we read, was ac- 



THE SPIRIT GIVEN TO THE CHURCH 23 



companied by striking outward signs — "a sound as of the 
rushing of a mighty wind," " tongues parting asunder, like 
as of fire," and the speaking "with other tongues," by the 
apostles, so that every man heard his own language. The 
reality of these phenomena can be consistently questioned 
only by those who reject any supernatural event as intrinsi- 
cally incredible, or those who deny the credibility of Luke, 
for his testimony is explicit. Whatever may have been the 
nature of the speaking with tongues in later years, to which 
Paul refers (1 Cor. 14 : 1-33), in this case it must have been 
the speaking in tongues hitherto unknown by these unlettered 
Galileans. The "cloven tongues" of our King James ver- 
sion is misleading; it is rather "tongues distributed," so 
that one sat upon each of them. These wonderful manifes- 
tations were at once noised abroad, and a great concourse 
of people came to see what this might portend. 

The Great Ingathering. — Taking advantage of this 
curiosity and astonishment, Peter preached the gospel of 
Christ to these people : The special characteristics of his 
discourse are noteworthy : It was (1) scriptural and (2) prac- 
tical. Its foundation was Old Testament prophecy, which 
all his hearers accepted as authoritative. Its end was to pro- 
duce submission to Jesus, " whom God hath made both Lord 
and Christ. " In these particulars it is a model sermon, and 
serves as an example to be followed through all time. Not 
only preaching in the sense of pulpit discourse, but all relig- 
ious teaching, to be effective must proceed on these lines — 
the exposition of Scripture and its application to the business 
in hand, with the end always in view of producing submis- 
sion to Jesus as Lord. 



24 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



This sermon was made effective by the Holy Spirit to the 
conversion of three thousand persons, who, as the narrative 
plainly implies, without explicity saying it, were baptized the 
same day. This was only the beginning of the work — the 
tongues of fire were symbols, not of a temporary gift, but of 
the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the souls of 
believers as an illuminating and sanctifying power, uniting 
them in one body. ' ' The Lord added to them day by day 
those that were being saved, ' ' and the power to work ' ' won- 
ders and signs ' ' was added as a further testimony of Divine 
favor. 

It is doubtless this sudden awakening and rapid growth 
that have led so many writers to speak of Pentecost as ' ' the 
birthday of the church." A figure of speech must not be 
pressed too literally. In germ the church existed before, 
but on this day it first arrived at a consciousness of itself as 
a society of Christian believers, and began a definite, organic 
life. It was still without formal organization, with no recog- 
nized head, no system of government, but the life was there 
and would evolve these things as they were needed. But 
simple as this beginning was, the fundamental law, the 
essential constitution of the church of Christ was as evident 
on the day of Pentecost as it ever became, and this constitu- 
tion remained unchanged throughout the apostolic era. It 
was clearly demonstrated on this day that the church had 
broken with every tradition of the past, and was established 
on an entirely new basis — that of spiritual fellowship with 
Jesus Christ. For note, that Peter throughout his sermon 
exhorted his hearers to repentance for their sins and faith in 
Christ. Note also that only those who believed were added 



THE SPIRIT GIVKN TO THE CHURCH 25 



to the church by baptism — "they then that received his 
word were baptized." It is quite possible, indeed probable, 
that in the multitudes that came together to hear Peter's 
sermon there were many small children, infants even. It 
was customary among the Jews for the whole family to go 
up to these feasts. If the baptism of infants were to be 
found anywhere in the New Testament we might fairly ex- 
pect to find it here. But there is not a trace of it ; it is 
excluded in explicit terms, for those baptized were those that 
received Peter's word — that God had made Jesus both Lord 
and Christ. That is to say, the church at Jerusalem was 
composed of those, and of those only, who made personal 
confession of faith in Christ, and thus gave credible evidence 
that they had been regenerated by the Holy Spirit. Baptists 
hold this as fundamental among their distinctive principles. 

Baptism of the Three Thousand. — That three thou- 
sand should be baptized in one day is no longer a subject 
for marvel or dispute. The researches of modern travelers 
have established the fact that there were ample facilities in 
Jerusalem for the immersion of even so many as this. Be- 
sides the large pools in the city, the houses were amply sup- 
plied with cisterns hewn in the rock. Some of these, 
measured by Dr. Robinson, were thirty feet square and 
twenty feet deep. A flight of steps generally led down to these 
cisterns, than which, when of the proper depth, nothing could 
make a better baptistery. The experience of missionaries 
and pastors has shown that there is no difficulty in the mat- 
ter of time. In 1879, at Ongole, India, two thousand two 
hundred and twenty-two Telugu converts were baptized in 
nine hours, six ministers administering the ordinance. 



26 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



The baptism of these converts followed directly upon their 
conversion. There was no protracted examination by 
church committees ; the mere confession of Christ under the 
circumstances, when to confess him was to invite persecution 
and death, was proof of good faith and credible evidence of 
regeneration. Baptist churches should follow the New Tes- 
tament order as closely as possible, and interpose as few 
obstacles to the immediate baptism of believers as is con- 
sistent with satisfactory tests of the sincerity of a convert's 
confession of faith. When deacons and committees and 
church machinery are permitted unduly to interpose between 
conversion and baptism we violate the New Testament order, 
and are unfaithful to our own principles. In our day it is 
true that the mere desire to join the church is no proof of 
regeneration ; there are now too many advantages, social 
and other, connected with church-membership to make this 
a satisfactory test. An examination by the church, with or 
without a preliminary examination by its officers or an 
authorized committee, is now a necessity in order to secure 
credible evidence of regeneration ; but this should not be 
unnecessarily protracted. The following of New Testament 
precedent should not be merely mechanical and slavish ; 
some flexibility of method is permissible, but the end must 
be kept constantly in view. 

3Mie Fellowship of the Saints. — Baptism was not 
merely a public confession of faith in Jesus as the Messiah 
and the formal induction of the baptized person into the 
company of believers, but the beginning of a new life of 
Christian fellowship in the service of God. The narrative 
makes emphatic the fact that it was only those that had been 



THK SPIRIT GIVEN TO THE CHURCH 27 



baptized and continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine 
and fellowship who united in the "breaking of bread." 
This phrase, though it may sometimes describe an ordinary 
meal, is used uniformly in the Acts and Epistles to denote 
the breaking of bread in the Lord's Supper (Acts 20 : 7, 
11 ; 1 Cor. 10 : 16). This supper was generally preceded 
by an ordinary meal, and was celebrated in the evening, in 
close imitation of the circumstances of its institution. It 
also seems plain that it was observed frequently, probably 
every day at the close of the evening meal, for a time. 
There is neither here nor elsewhere a justification for invit- 
ing to the table of the Lord either the unbaptized or the 
unconverted. 

LITERATURE. 
On the constitution of the church, Wilkinson, " The Baptist Prin- 
ciple, " will be found to contain much that is convincing. On the 
facilities for immersion in Jerusalem, see Robinson's " Biblical Re- 
searches in Palestine," vol. I., pp. 348, 374; Smith's " Dictionary of 
the Bible," articles "Pools" and "Cisterns." On the baptism at 
Ongole, see Vedder's " Short History of the Baptists," Appendix A. 
On the method of reckoning the day of Pentecost, see a very thorough 
discussion in Clark's " Harmonic Arrangement of the Acts," pp. 149- 
153; but see also Hackett on Acts 2 : I ; Stifler's " Introduction to 
the Study of the Acts of the Apostles," sec. 2. On the gift of tongues, 
see Schaff's " History of the Christian Church," vol. I., pp. 231-242, 
and Farrar's "Life of St. Paul," chap. 5. 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
I. The origin of Pentecost and Jewish customs in connection with 
its celebration. 2. The use of the lot as a religious custom; why 
have Christians discontinued it? 3. Compare Peter's quotations with 
the original passages ; what is the significance of the variations ? 4. 
To what extent are we justified in adding to New Testament usage ? 
Formulate a principle that will cover all cases, if possible. 



II. 



THE HEALING OF THE LAME MAN. 

The Miracle. — No note of time is given to indicate how 
closely this event followed Pentecost ; probably it followed a 
few days after this great outpouring of the Spirit. Though 
the followers of Christ held meetings by themselves from the 
first, especially upon the first day of the week, they did not 
withdraw from the regular Jewish worship. Ecclesiastically 
speaking, they were a party of the Jewish church, like the 
Essenes, not a separate sect. Formal ecclesiastical separa- 
tion between Jews and Christians did not begin until a 
considerably later period, and was not completed until after 
the destruction of Jerusalem, if completed then. Years 
after this we find Paul going to the temple to perform a 
Nazarite vow (Acts 2 1 : 20-26). It is important to keep in mind 
this early relation of the Christian to the Jewish faith and 
worship. In going to take part in the temple worship Peter 
and John were doing no exceptional thing, but conforming 
to a general practice among the apostles and their brethren. 

The reality of the miracle performed was as unquestioned 
as it was unquestionable. The man and his infirmity were 
known to all Jerusalem. The beggar was, and still is in the 
East, an institution of which we have a feeble conception. 
This man's lameness was not acquired, but congenital, 
which any physician would tell us is the most hopeless case 
found. The healing was complete, as is shown by his 
28 



THE HEALING OF THE LAME MAN 



29 



immediately walking and leaping. Luke writes of this 
scene with a vividness almost warranting the conclusion that 
he was an eye-witness, and with an accuracy of detail that 
one might expect of a physician. 

The Testimony of Peter.— Peter, as usual, was the 
spokesman. 1. He disclaimed for himself and John the 
possession of any miraculous power, and ascribed this act 
of healing to God. This would prepossess a Jewish audience 
in his favor and win him a further hearing. 2. He pro- 
ceeded to preach Christ as having been sent by God 
according to the predictions of the prophets, slain by the 
Jews and raised from the dead, and avowed that the faith 
which is by him had given this man this perfect soundness 
in the presence of them all. Note that in this case, as in 
other cases given us, the preaching of the apostles is based 
on the exposition of what the Jews recognized as the author- 
itative word of God. There is no variation from this rule in 
the New Testament — the function of the minister of Christ 
is to "preach the word " (2 Tim. 4 : 2). 3. He exhorted 
them to repentance. Preaching that does not have as its 
end the leading of men to forsake their sins and obey Christ, 
is not preaching, though it may be good religious talk. 

The Significance of the Miracle. — Peter s testimony 
is explicit. The lame man was not healed merely out of 
compassion for him ; there were other cripples, perhaps as 
deserving as he, who went unhealed. Rather the healing 
was wrought as a demonstration of God's power abiding 
with the apostles, and as a seal of the truth of their testi- 
mony to Jesus and his resurrection. The word commonly 
used in the New Testament to describe a miracle means 



30 TH£ DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



literally " a sign." This healing was a sign that none who 
knew the man and saw him walking and leaping and prais- 
ing God could dispute or misinterpret. Other cases of apos- 
tolic miracles are recorded : such as Peter's raising Dorcas 
from the dead (Acts 9 : 40),. various healings through Paul 
(Acts 14 : 10 ; 19 : 12 ; 28 : 8), and the raising of Eutychus 
(Acts 20 : 10), though in this last case it is not absolutely 
certain that there was a miracle. These must not be con- 
founded with other miraculous events, wrought upon or in 
behalf of the apostles, such as Paul's blindness (chap. 9), 
and Peter's deliverance from prison (chap. 12). In all the 
cases of undoubted miracle, it is the sign value, the witness- 
ing power of the act, that we find emphasized. 

Post-apostolic " Miracles. "-^This characteristic of the 
biblical miracles helps toward solving the much-vexed prob- 
lem of the continuance of miraculous gifts in the church 
after apostolic times. The time would naturally come when 
this form of witnessing would be less efficacious than other 
forms, and at a later period the witness of miracles would 
be superfluous. The existence of the Christian church and 
the triumphs of the gospel in every land are a testimony to 
the divine power of Jesus Christ more convincing than any 
wonders in nature. The spiritual testimony outweighs the 
physical, and makes the latter needless if not confusing. 
God does not waste power, and miracle being needless in 
these days it is irrational to expect its continuance. Then 
too, we must recognize the fact that there is no authenticated 
case of post-apostolic miracle. Whether an alleged event 
actually occurred, and if so, whether it is properly called a 
miracle, are questions of fact, to be decided by testimony. 



THE HEADING OF THE LAME MAN 3 1 



When we sift the testimony we find nothing worthy the 
name of evidence in favor of the so-called miracles of the 
centuries following the apostolic age. 

But how is this conclusion to be reconciled with the 
promise that ' ' the prayer of faith shall save the sick ' ' ? 
(James 5 : 14, 15.) Or with other assurances (such as John 
14 : 13 ; Matt. 18 : 19) regarding God's willingness to answer 
prayer ? Remarkable answers to prayer there have always 
been in the church, and doubtless always will be, including 
recoveries of the sick and afflicted that can hardly be 
explained save as a direct interposition of Divine power. 
These are not " miracles" in the Scripture sense, though 
we often use that word to describe anything marvelous, 
inexplicable, and possibly supernatural. The miracles of 
Scripture were wrought at the instance of some person, to 
attest his authority as God's representative and to secure a 
hearing for his message. 

LITERATURE. 

On the general subject of miracles see Mozley's " Bampton Lec- 
tures " ; H. B. Smith's "Lectures on Apologetics,' ' pp. 90-116; 
Bruce's **' Miraculous Element in the Gospels " ; Fisher's " Christian 
Evidences,' 7 pp. 41-46. On alleged modern miracles, see Buckley's 
" Christian Science, Faith-healing, and Kindred Phenomena." 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 

I. The location of the Gate Beautiful (see Hackett's commentary 
on the passage). 2. The titles of Jesus in the New Testament. 
3. Compare Peter's quotations from the prophets with the originals, 
and read the context of each carefully. 4. Compare Peter's an- 
nouncement of Christ's second coming with other passages teaching 
the same thing. 



III. 



THE BEGINNING OF PERSECUTION, 

Origin of the Persecution. — It is worthy of note that 
this first persecution of Christians originated with the Sad- 
ducees. It was not the attempt of Judaism to suppress 
Christianity, for as we have seen, Christianity was not yet 
regarded as a separate religion, but rather as a sect or party 
among the Jews. It had made, so far as we know, not a 
single Gentile convert ; the followers of Christ were Jews 
who were still careful to observe all the requirements of the 
ceremonial law. We have here, therefore, merely the in- 
tolerance of one Jewish sect for another ; for though others 
are mentioned as taking part in the arrest, the Sadducees 
are the moving spirits. The ground of their opposition is 
clearly stated and is purely sectarian : They had the apostles 
arrested, not because they preached Jesus as the Messiah, 
but because they "proclaimed in Jesus the resurrection from 
the dead" — a doctrine detestable to the Sadducees. At this 
time the "men of light and leading " in the nation were of 
this party ; the chief priests, the men of wealth, of social 
distinction, and of political influence belonged to it. At the 
same time, a Sadducee was reckoned by the truly orthodox 
Jew — the Pharisee, who prided himself on his knowledge of 
the law and his exact observance of its smallest injunctions — 
as little better than a Gentile. 
32 



THE BEGINNING OF PERSECUTION 33 



Before the Sanhedrin. — Though the body is not named 
before which the apostles were brought, the description leaves 
no room for doubt that it was the great council or Sanhedrin. 
This body came into existence after the completion of the 
Old Testament canon, probably subsequent to the period of 
Macedonian supremacy. Its composition was probably as 
follows : Twenty-four priests, twenty-four elders, and twenty- 
two scribes or men learned in the law. To be eligible, a 
man was required to be physically and morally without 
blemish ; he must have reached at least middle life, and 
must be a man of substance and learning. According to some 
authorities, he must also be a married man. The meeting 
of this council was held in the Gazith, a hall in the court of 
the temple. The Sandedrin had jurisdiction over all cases 
of heresy like the present, and was a court of appeal to 
which all capital cases could be carried. At this time, it had 
either entirely lost the power of life and death, or exercised 
it only in exceptional cases and by grace of the Roman pro- 
curator ; but minor punishments it could still inflict. Here, 
as elsewhere in the New Testament, the accounts given of 
the proceedings in this body agree exactly with what is known 
of its rules from Jewish writings. The attendance of so 
many persons of rank on this occasion was somewhat unu- 
sual ; the Sanhedrin sat every day, with the exception of the 
Sabbath and festivals, from the termination of the morning 
sacrifice to the evening sacrifice, and naturally a full attend- 
ance of members occurred only when some question of un- 
usual importance was to be decided. 

The Testimony of Peter. — The rules of the Sanhedrin 
were admirably adapted to secure the rights of the accused 

C 



34 THK DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



and give him every opportunity to make his defense — when 
the passion of the council did not override all rules. On this 
occasion a full hearing was granted to the apostles, and 
Peter as usual became the spokesman. His defense was not 
only bold, he being filled with the Holy Ghost, but adroit ; 
it was not a disputation, but a testimony. It was founded 
upon the undeniable fact that a wonderful healing had been 
wrought, and it ascribed this miracle to the power of Jesus 
of Nazareth, the Messiah, whom this very body had cruci- 
fied, but whom God had raised from the dead, and in whom 
alone is salvation. This defense disconcerted the doctors 
of the law, who had come to confute these rival teachers with 
technicalities and subtleties. Peter and John they found to 
be unlearned and ignorant men, i. e. t not trained in the Jew- 
ish schools of the law, but this testimony could not be gain- 
said. Note how fully the promise of Jesus to his disciples 
was fulfilled in this case (Matt. 10 : 19, 20). 

The Sanhedrims Decision. — The council decided that 
for the present, the thing to be done was to muzzle the teach- 
ers of this heresy. It was difficult, if not impossible, to con- 
vict them of even a technical offense against Jewish law ; 
and it was impolitic to punish them in any case, ' * because 
of the people : for all men glorified God for that which was 
done." Peter and John were commanded to speak and 
teach no more in the name of Jesus, but in spite of all threats 
they firmly announced their purpose to continue their work, in 
the fear of God, not of man. It was a lame and impotent 
conclusion of the Sanhedrin's undertaking. Persecution, if it 
is to be begun, must be unflinching. It must count the cost 
and not shrink from blood. The only persecutions that have 



THE BEGINNING OF PERSECUTION 



35 



been even temporarily effective have been ruthless — the per- 
secutors have made a solitude and called it peace. 

The Second Outbreak. — But a few weeks later the 
apostles (all of them, apparently, this time) were again ar- 
rested and cast into prison, from which they were miracu- 
lously released. Being again brought before the Sanhedrin, 
that body was this time minded to slay them, but was dis- 
suaded by the advice of Gamaliel. Whether he was inspired 
of God or was merely worldly-wise, he gave the council ad- 
vice that all would-be persecutors would have done well to 
ponder : " Refrain from these men and let them alone ; for 
if this counsel or this work be of men it will be overthrown ; 
but if it is of God, ye will not be able to overthrow them ; 
lest haply ye be found even to be fighting against God. ' ' 
The Sanhedrin so far heeded the advice as to refrain from 
severer measures than a beating and a repetition of the warn- 
ing not to speak in the name of Jesus. 

Result of These Persecutions. — The result upon the 
church was a fresh outpouring of the Holy Ghost, a new ad- 
vance all along the line of service. After Pentecost three 
thousand were added to the church, but the result of this 
persecution was to add a multitude of believers, of whom 
the men alone were five thousand. So it has been in 
all ages ; the blood of the martyrs has ever been the seed 
of the church. What men call heresy is like a fire-brand ; 
the attempt to stamp it out by violence scatters the sparks 
wider, and in place of a small fire we have a great con- 
flagration. Not only the spread of truth, but the spread 
of error is promoted by violence. Let truth and error come 
to a fair grapple and there can be no doubt of the result. 



36 THK DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



One who has once grasped the principle that the church 
consists of the regenerate solely, that men can become mem- 
bers of it only by virtue of their personal relation to Christ, 
necessarily becomes hostile to persecution in every form. 
Men may be persuaded, but they cannot be coerced into the 
kingdom of God. For a Baptist to advocate persecution is 
as illogical and suicidal as for a Unitarian to pray to the 
Triune God, or for a Roman Catholic to hold to the right of 
private judgment. Every manifestation of intolerance by a 
Baptist is a denial of his first principle. Peter, in his words 
to the Sanhedrin, asserted the true rule of action for the 
Christian : ' ' Whether it be right in the sight of God to 
hearken unto you rather than unto God, judge ye ; for we 
cannot but speak the things which we saw and heard." 
And obviously every man who asserts this right for himself 
is bound to grant it to everybody else. 

LITERATURE. 

On the general subject, see " Expositor's " Acts, chap. 9. On 
Sanhedrin, see Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible." On the autonomy 
of the Jews at this time, see an essay by the author in the " Bibli- 
otheca Sacra," October, 1882. The most eloquent plea for freedom of 
speech in our own, or in any language, is Milton's " Areopagitica." 
With this compare " Religion's Peace," by Leonard Busher, a Baptist, 
in the publications of the Hanserd Knollys Society, " Tracts on 
Liberty of Conscience." 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
What light does Josephus throw on the " captain of the temple " 
and hb duties ? 2. The prominence of Christ's resurrection in the 
apostolic preaching — Why ? 3. When is resistance to the civil law 
by Christians justifiable ? 4. Do any persecuting tendencies survive 
among us ? 



IV. 



THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD. 

The Unity of Believers. — 1 ' Behold how these Christians 
love one another," was the testimony of heathendom to the 
early church. An exhibition of this mutual love is given us 
in this lesson. "The multitude of them that believed were 
of one heart and soul." So it ever should be in Christ's 
church, and so far as this spirit is lacking the church is shorn 
of its power. It is selfishness and indifference in the church 
to-day that hinder the conversion of the world more than 
anything else that can be named. The form in which this 
unity was manifested in the church of Jerusalem was extra- 
ordinary, and deserves special study, both for its own inter- 
est and because it is held up to us by certain Christians as a 
model for all churches through all time. Baptists believe 
that New Testament precedent, when it is clear, is equally 
authoritative with New Testament precept, since it is the 
Holy Ghost teaching by example rather than by word. But 
a precedent to be of binding force on the church of all ages 
must be (a) general in the apostolic age, (b) based on a prin- 
ciple of permanent value, and (c) uncontradicted by positive 
apostolic teaching. 

Christian Communism. — Will the so-called Christian 
communism of the church at Jerusalem bear these tests ? Is 
it part of the common law of the New Testament, or is it an 
isolated practice rather disapproved than approved by other 

37 



38 the: dawn of Christianity 



precedent and teaching ? As a help to the solution of this 
problem, note certain things. 

1. This community of goods is not specifically com- 
mended by the author of the Acts. The facts are narrated 
and are left to make their own impression, as in many other 
cases. It is our right and duty, therefore, to interpret the 
facts in the light of other Scripture and of whatever other 
truth is known to us. 

2. This community of goods is not known to have been 
practised anywhere else during the apostolic period. Not 
only is there a significant silence on this point, but the 
positive inference that communism did not prevail in other 
churches is warranted, and in some cases compelled, by 
what is actually said of them. 

3. In this church communism had bad results. Almost 
immediately it caused jealousies and divisions, the Grecian 
Jews alleging that their widows were neglected, while the 
Hebrews received an undue share (Acts 6:1). A common 
fund quickly developed the more unlovely traits of unsancti- 
fied human nature in the saints at Jerusalem. It is so well 
adapted to produce that result everywhere, that only the 
most positive evidence would make one believe such an ex- 
pedient to have the approval of God. But it had an even 
worse result : the church became permanently pauperized. 1 
From this time on it made appeals for help to the rest of the 
brethren— appeals to which the other churches responded 
(1 Cor. 16 : 1), but which might have been unnecessary if a 
wiser policy had been pursued from the first. It is a most 



1 Of course persecution aggravated this evil, but other churches were persecuted 
without becoming pauperized. 



THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD 39 



delicate and difficult problem, how to help a man who is 
down without doing him more harm than good ; how to give 
him temporary assistance that will not deprive him of his 
self-respect and make him a beggar for life. Relief funds 
generally cause more misery than they relieve, by teaching 
people to depend on others. It is the testimony of men en- 
gaged for years in charitable work that the poverty of Chicago 
dates from the time when large relief funds were subscribed 
to help those made homeless by the great fire, so that what 
was intended to be a mercy became really a curse to the city. 
We are justified in doubting whether a plan that had so bad 
results in the one case in New Testament history where it 
was tried, had the sanction of God. 

4. This community of goods appears to have been a tem- 
porary expedient even at Jerusalem. It was adopted because 
of the sudden increase of the church, to which by this time 
probably not fewer than ten thousand had been added, most 
of whom were by their change of faith cut off from their 
former means of livelihood, many of whom were Jews from 
a distance who had come up to attend the Pentecost celebra- 
tion, and had remained in the city after their conversion. 
After the church had been compelled by persecution and the 
exhaustion of its resources to scatter, we hear no more of the 
community of goods. 

5. The community was voluntary ; it was the spontaneous 
act of those who had property, not a law laid upon them by 
the apostles. This is clear in Peter's words to Ananias : 
' ' While it remained, did it not remain thine own ? and after 
it was sold was it not in thy power ? ' ' The sacrifice was not 
enforced but voluntary, and in so far as it was an expression 



40 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



of love for Christ and the brethren it is worthy of our admira- 
tion and emulation, even though as a scheme of Christian 
living it may be fatally defective. 

6. It is, to say the least, not easily reconcilable with other 
New Testament teaching. " If a man will not work neither 
shall he eat ' ' is a saying not popular among advocates of 
communism (2 Thess. 3 : 10-12; 1 Thess. 4 : 11, 12; 
Eph. 4 : 28). 

The Sin of Ananias and Sapphira. — This sin was not 
theft, but falsehood. By keeping all or part of their property 
they defrauded nobody ; by pretending to put all in the 
common fund, while they kept part for their own use, they 
lied to God. This is the first appearance in the church of 
that human depravity that has marred its history ever since. 
Ananias sinned because two vices had dominion over his 
soul : vanity and covetousness. He desired to obtain great 
credit for generosity and yet to keep his money. The sudden 
judgment that overtook him and his co-conspirator lends 
awful emphasis to our Lord' s words, " Ye cannot serve God 
and mammon." 

LITERATURE. 
" Expositor's " Acts, chaps. 10, II. See Tolstoi's " My Religion," 
for an advocacy of communism on alleged Christian principles. Stif- 
ler's, " Introduction to the Study of the Acts of the Apostles," sec. 3. 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
I. Jewish burial customs. 2. On what moral basis does the right 
of private property rest? 3. What does Paul teach regarding the sin 
of covetousness ? 4. Are there other New Testament precedents not 
binding on the whole church for all time ? Name some, and show 
why they lack binding force. 5. Name some precedents that are uni- 
versally binding. Why ? 



V. 



THE CHURCH ORGANIZED. 

Organisation a growth. — Every society is an organism, 
and is subject to the law of growth, of gradual evolution. 
The Church of Christ is no exception to this law. It was no 
more born full-grown than is a man. At first the assembly 
of the saints in Jerusalem was without organization, the 
apostles exercising the necessary functions of supervision 
and leadership. As the needs of the church manifested 
themselves, the organization was begun and perfected. 
This has been the law of the church life ever since. Those 
who believe that all progress stopped with the death of the 
apostles have imperfectly comprehended both the New 
Testament and the history of the church. Each age has its 
special needs, and each age will modify the organization 
of the church to suit those needs. This involves no infrac- 
tion of the New Testament teaching or disregard of New 
Testament precedent. The apostolic church organization 
was very simple, yet exceedingly flexible, and has proved 
itself to be adapted to every succeeding age, without altera- 
tion of its essential principles. 

Rise of the Diaconate. — The first office to be estab- 
lished was not, as we might have expected, the pastorate, 
but the diaconate. In the church of Jerusalem the apostles 
were both preachers and pastors of the flock, but the need 
of some one to ' ' serve tables, ' ' to distribute from the com- 

4i 



42 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



mon fund for the relief of the poor, was met by the appoint- 
ment of the proper officers. In connection with this subject, 
note : 

1. The deacons were not appointed by the apostles, but 
chosen by the church. The apostles did not even nominate 
the deacons ; the church chose from their number seven 
men ' 'full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom." The demo- 
cratic constitution of the church was recognized from the 
beginning. 

2. The deacons were ordained to their office, i. e., for- 
mally set apart to it by the laying on of hands and prayer. 
The laying on of hands was not regarded as conveying 
divine grace, but as symbolic of the grace to be bestowed in 
answer to prayer. There is reason to believe that it was 
alv/ays practised in the apostolic church whenever men 
were set apart to a special work (Acts 13 : 1-3). Query : 
Would not Baptists be more consistent observers of apostolic 
precedent, and would not the office of deacon be more re- 
spected, if deacons were thus solemnly set apart for their 
work in all our churches ? 

3. The primary duty of deacons was evidently to look 
after the poor. The qualifications for the office, as stated by 
the Apostle Paul (1 Tim. 3 : 8-13), are almost identical with 
those of bishops, with the exception that the deacon is not 
required to be "apt to teach." We may, perhaps, safely 
infer that there was a gradual extension of the deacon's 
functions in the New Testament period, until he came to be 
regarded as a helper of the pastor in all spiritual labor, but 
especially in visiting the sick and ministering to the poor. 
That deacons should assist the pastor in the celebration of 



THE CHURCH ORGANIZED 



43 



the Lord's Supper is an ancient custom, founded on obvious 
propriety rather than on Scripture. 

4. In later New Testament times there were probably 
deaconesses also (Rom. 16 : 1, where the literal translation 
is, ' ' Phcebe, our sister, who is a deaconess of the church 
that is at Cenchreae"). Many scholars suppose that the 
"widows" of 1 Tim. 5 : 9 and "women" of 1 Tim. 3:11 
must mean deaconesses. The latter seems probable, 
the former uncertain. This is a disputed question about 
which it does not become us to be too confident ; but on the 
whole, there seems to be sufficient evidence to warrant any 
church in appointing deaconesses, if among its members are 
suitable women, and if their ministrations are likely to be 
useful. 

Rise of the Pastorate.— The origin of the pastorate is 
more obscure. We first read of it during the missionary 
tour of Paul and Barnabas, "now having appointed for them 
elders in every church" (Acts 14 : 23). In this case also 
the need evolved the office. The apostles were evangelists ; 
they founded churches, but could not be their permanent 
leaders. A resident pastor to feed the flock became a neces- 
sity. Note in this connection : 

1. The official title of the pastor is "bishop" (eftiskoftos, 
an overseer), or "elder" (ftresbyteros), the two terms being 
practically interchangeable (Acts 20 : 17, 28, where the 
same persons are called first presbyters and then bishops. 
See the Revised Version). 

2. It is admitted by the best scholars of even Episcopal 
churches, that in the New Testament time "bishop" and 
"elder" were the same, and that the bishop had authority 



44 



THE: DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



over only a single church. The episcopate, as a separate 
order of the ministry, higher than the presbyter, was of 
post-apostolic development. 

3. The bishops or elders were probably chosen by the 
churches (see especially Hackett on Acts 14 : 23), though 
the apostles naturally had great influence in the appointment 
of the first elders in a newly organized church. 

4. In these churches of Asia Minor, if not generally in the 
New Testament churches, there was a plurality of elders 
(see also Acts 20 : 17 ; Titus 1:5). 

5. The qualifications for the office and the work of the 
ministry, form the subject of the Apostle Paul's epistles to 
Timothy and Titus, and are summed up briefly in 1 Tim. 

3 : i-7. 

6. It seems certain that bishops were solemnly set apart 
to their work by a public ceremony, the essential feature of 
which was the laying on of hands and prayer (1 Tim. 

4 :14). In Baptist churches now, pastors are usually 
ordained only with the concurrence of sister churches, who 
send delegates for the purpose of examining the candidate 
and advising the church. But the church ordains, on the 
advice of the council usually ; the council does not and can- 
not ordain, since its function is merely advisory. 

The Involution of Organisation. — This simple organi- 
zation sufficed for the needs of apostolic times. It has 
proved itself flexible enough for all times. The New Testa- 
ment leaves each local church, and the churches of Christ 
as a whole, a great measure of liberty with regard to organi- 
zation, provided there be no departure from this essential 
simplicity. The two great features of modern life are 

\ 



THE CHURCH ORGANIZED 



45 



co-operation and specialization, and the churches have 
evolved a somewhat complex system of organization along 
these two lines. Within the church is specialization ; the 
Sunday-school, the missionary society, the temperance 
society, the young people's society, the Boy's Brigade — all 
these are classifications of the members for the work to 
which each is best adapted. So long as these societies are 
organic parts of the local church and subject to its authority, 
not independent entities, they do not clash with the scriptural 
idea of the church. There are indefinite liberty and flexibility 
in this direction. Outside of the church is co-operation : 
Associations, State Conventions, national missionary societies 
— these are combinations of effort that are lawful to any 
extent that is expedient, provided they are voluntary associ- 
ations of the churches, without legislative power except for 
themselves. 

LITERATURE. 

Chap. 13m" Expositor's" Acts. On the general subject of church 
organization see Conybeare and Howson, chap. 13 ; Jacob's " Ecclesi- 
astical Polity of the New Testament " ; Hatch's " Organization of the 
Early Christian Church " ; Schaff s " History of the Christian Church," 
vol. L, chap. 10. 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
I. Is "board of deacons" a good Baptist phrase, i. e., does it 
represent a scriptural idea ? 2. What are the limitations of pastoral 
authority in the church? 3. Is more or less specialization of work 
within the church expedient ? 4. Is there any dangerous tendency 
toward denominational centralization in our State and national 
organizations ? 5. Should ministers coming to us from other churches 
be ordained ? 



VI. 



STEPHEN, THE FIRST MARTYR. 

The Second Jewish Persecution. — The first persecu- 
tion of the Christians in Jerusalem was set on foot by the 
Sadducees, because the apostles preached the doctrine of the 
resurrection. The Pharisees were then either neutral or 
favored the persecuted sect. No long time passed, however, 
before the Pharisees also became hostile to the new faith. 
Few marks of chronology are afforded us in this part of the 
Acts, but the chronological schemes covering the apostolic 
church allow not less than three years between Pentecost and 
the death of Stephen, the latter event being placed as early 
as A. D. 33, and as late as A. d. 35. Five years are not too 
long a time to account for the growth of the church and the 
gradual increase of exasperated bitterness necessary, before 
the Pharisees were ready for the final step. The disputations 
described in Acts 6:9, 10 must have continued some time 
and with increasing acrimony. It was the elders and the 
scribes — i. e., those learned in the law — who finally took 
action. 

The Accused and the Charge, — The accused was evi- 
idently the same Stephen who had not long before been 
chosen a deacon of the church in Jerusalem. At this time, 
the office of deacon was not incompatible with the performance 
of certain functions afterward limited by general consent to 
bishops ; for Stephen preached, and Philip both preached 
46 



STEPHEN, THE FIRST MARTYR 47 



and administered ordinances (Acts 8 : 38). Stephen was 
evidently a remarkable man. He is never mentioned but 
with special distinction as a man "full of faith and of the 
Holy Spirit," and from his speech we know him to have also 
been learned in the Jewish Scriptures, though almost certainly 
of Hellenistic origin — z. e, y speaking Greek instead of He- 
brew, or rather Aramaic. The charge, as in the case of the 
charges brought against Christ, though false in its exag- 
gerated form, doubtless had a basis of truth. That he spoke 
words really "blasphemous" (calumnious) against Moses 
and the temple and the law, is incredible ; but he may have 
taught things that seemed to a Pharisee to merit this descrip- 
tion. As Paul taught later, he probably maintained that in 
Christ the law had been fulfilled ; that the significance having 
departed from Mosaic ritual it would and should cease ; and 
he may have repeated our Lord's prediction of the temple's 
destruction. This it would be easy for religious hate to dis- 
tort into the form given in Acts 6:13, 14, and this would 
account for the zeal of the Pharisees against one who thus 
attacked the very basis of their religion of ceremonies. 

Stephen's Defense before the Sanhedrin. — The 
speech made in his defense is very fully reported, and still 
it is incomplete, for he was not suffered to finish it. As a de- 
fense, it is admirable ; considered as a speech, it lacks finish 
and coherence. Its main thought is plain : Stephen retorts 
upon his accusers the charge that he has lacked reverence 
for God, or God's law. He shows that they, and not he, 
have had a false view of the old dispensation ; and that the 
Jews, throughout their history, far from manifesting a true 
zeal for the temple and the law, had shown an ingratitude 



4 8 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



and unbelief that became more flagrant in proportion as the 
promises were fulfilled or given with greater fullness. In 
other words, he answers the charge of blaspheming the 
temple and the law by showing what is the true significance 
of both law and temple. The effectiveness of the defense 
was shown by the anger with which it was received — it was 
unanswerable, so they killed him. 

This scene has furnished the theme for the song of many 
Christian poets, none of whom, however, has caught its 
spirit more fully, or expressed it more exquisitely than Ten- 
nyson in his " Two Voices " : 

I cannot hide that some have striven, 
Achieving calm, to whom was given 
The joy that mixes man with heaven : 



Which did accomplish their desire, 
Bore and forebore, and did not tire ; 
Like Stephen, an un quenched fire. 

He heeded not reviling tones, 

Nor sold his heart to idle moans, 

Tho' cursed and scorn'd, and bruised with stones : 

But looking upward, full of grace, 
He pray'd, and from a happy place 
God's glory smote him on the face. 

In a sense, the Sanhedrin was not responsible for the death 
of Stephen. No judicial condemnation was pronounced ; he 
was seized in an outburst of mad passion, carried outside of 
the city, and stoned by a mob. This was a lynching, not an 
execution, which is perhaps the reason why the Jews were 
not called to account by the Roman governor. A procurator 



STEPHEN, THE FIRST MARTYR 49 



would naturally be careless if it came to his knowledge unoffi- 
cially that in a quarrel between these despised Jews one of 
their number had been slain. It is noteworthy that the 
common people participated in this violence, and seemed 
generally to approve it. Hitherto they had held the 
Christians in high favor, but now their religious intolerance 
had been excited by the report that these teachers threatened 
the permanence of their temple and its rites, and their 
former favor was turned to hatred. 

Difficulties of the Speech. — Stephen's references to the 
Old Testament history differ from the Old Testament record 
in many particulars. Some of these variations are due to 
the fact that Stephen probably used and quoted from the 
Septuagint version, instead of the original Hebrew. A few 
cases are expansions of the original text, due perhaps to 
current tradition among the Jews, or to comparison of the 
Prophets with the Pentateuch. Such instances are what 
Stephen says of the Egyptian education of Moses (compare 
Exod. 4 : 10), his greatness, learning, and eloquence (compare 
Acts 7 : 21,22 with Exod. 2 : 10 and 4 : 10), the intervention of 
angels in the giving of the law (Exod. 19 : 16). More diffi- 
cult to deal with than these additions to the Old Testament 
text are certain cases in which Stephen seems to contradict 
the record. For example, the call of Abraham (comp. Acts 
7 : 2 with Gen. 12:1), the death of Abraham's father (Acts 
7 : 4, Gen. 12 : 2-5) and the purchase of the tomb at Shec- 
hem (Acts 7 : 16, Gen. 23 : 17). The chronology given by 
Stephen, three periods of forty years (ver. 23, 30, 36), if 
not actually at variance with that of the Pentateuch, is sup- 
ported by the original record only in the last instance. 

D 



50 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



With regard to these difficulties, it may be said : i. The 
doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture does not mean that 
everything contained in it is true and inspired, but only that 
the writer was inspired to give a true account. Some things 
recorded in Scripture were evidently not inspired (the say- 
ings and doings of wicked men, for instance) but the record is 
nevertheless the result of inspiration. 2. That Luke was in- 
spired to report this speech and has done so with substantial 
verbal correctness cannot be successfully questioned, unless 
we reject altogether the doctrine of inspiration. 3. That 
Stephen was himself inspired, in any such sense as to pre- 
serve him from ordinary slips of memory in quotation, is 
nowhere stated or implied. 4. These discrepancies between 
the speech of Stephen and the Old Testament concern only 
minor matters of dates and the exact order of events, and 
in no wise relate to the general accuracy of his statements 
or the conclusiveness of his arguments. 5. The existence 
of these slight discrepancies testifies to the accuracy of 
Luke's report. Had he undertaken to tell us not what 
Stephen said but what he thought Stephen should have 
said, he would have carefully eliminated such discrepancies 
as well as given to the speech more finish and logical 
coherence. 

A Young Man Named Saul. — The death of Stephen 
seemed an overwhelming blow to the Christians of Jeru- 
salem, but in the providence of God, it became the salva- 
tion of the church instead of its destruction. It brought to 
a close the first period in the history of the apostolic church. 
During this period the disciples had been witnesses in Jeru- 
salem exclusively, tarrying there in the vain hope of winning 



STEPHEN, THE FIRST MARTYR 5 1 



to the new faith a large body of those who were their breth- 
ren after the flesh. It was now evident that the religion of 
the Christ had no chance of acceptance in Jerusalem, either 
among the leaders of the Jews, or among the common peo- 
ple ; it remained for the disciples to take a forward step in 
obedience to Christ and become his witnesses on a broader 
field. This new movement demanded a leader, and a 
leader was soon to be found among the persecutors of 
Stephen. ' 1 A young man named Saul, ' ' is now first men- 
tioned in the narrative. Professor Wilkinson, in his 1 ' Epic 
of Saul," supposes that Saul had been one of Stephen's 
chief opponents and had been defeated by Stephen in pub- 
lic disputation. This is a permissible use of the imagination 
by a poet, and the historian finds nothing in the narrative 
inconsistent with such a story. Highly probable it seems 
to be, that Stephen's death had much to do with Saul's con- 
version. So it has ever been in the history of the church ; 
as one leader falls God raises up another to carry on his 
work. 



LITERATURE. 

Taylor's " Paul the Missionary," chap. I ; Conybeare and Howson, 
chap. 2; chap. 14, in " Expositor's " Acts ; Farrar's " Life and Work 
of the Apostle Paul," chap. 8. On the general subject of discrep- 
ancies in the text of Scripture, see Haley's "Examination of the 
Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible." For a study of the character 
of Stephen, see Wilkinson's " Epic of Saul." For valuable com- 
ments on Stephen, his speech, his martyrdom, consult Clark's " Har- 
monic Arrangement of the Acts," pp. 160-168. On the Sanhedrin 
and its constitution, see Schurer's "Jewish People in the Time of 
Christ," g. 23. 



52 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
I . Who were the Libertines, and what light does this passage 
throw on Paul's Roman citizenship ? (See Hackett and compare 
Conybeare and Howson.) 2. Make a paraphrase of Stephen's argu- 
ment, condensing his historical references. 3. What was the state of 
the church of Jerusalem at the end as compared with the beginning 
of this period ? 4. What was the cause of the changed attitude of 
the common people toward Christianity ? 



PART II 
THE GOSPEL IN ASIA 

" And in all Judea and Samaria." 
A. D. 36-50. 



VII. 



CHRISTIANITY BECOMES A MISSIONARY RELIGION. 

The Effect of the Persecution. — The hatred of the 
Pharisees toward the followers of Jesus did not abate with 
the death of Stephen. Though his martyrdom was in part 
the result of sudden passion, it was also a mark of fixed pur- 
pose, and not rage against a' single person. The Pharisees 
had determined upon nothing less than the extirpation of 
this heresy, and they went about the matter with system as 
well as with determination. No sooner was Stephen buried 
than a general persecution of his brethren began. Con- 
spicuously active in this work was Saul, whose part in the 
death of Stephen seems to have been that of a passive yet 
approving spectator. He now made havoc of the church, 
pursuing Christians to their homes and casting them into 
prison. 

The disciples in Jerusalem therefore dispersed, becoming 
preachers of the gospel wherever they went. Many of them, 
it is plain from the preceding chapters, had come to Jerusa- 
lem from homes elsewhere, to attend the feast of Pentecost ; 
and, having been converted, had tarried in the city. Now 
they would naturally return to their previous place of resi- 
dence and carry with them the glad tidings of salvation 
through Jesus Christ. Thus this persecution, which seemed 
at first likely to prove fatal to the church, in fact insured its 

55 



56 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



perpetuity. Had the disciples been permitted to tarry 
peacefully in Jerusalem, they might have forgotten or dis- 
obeyed the last injunction of their Lord — "Go ye therefore, 
and make disciples of all the nations." The minds of the 
apostles had been greatly enlarged by the teachings of their 
Master, but they were yet in bondage to their narrow Jewish 
ideas. They still regarded the gospel as a message to the 
Jews, chiefly if not exclusively ; they had yet to grasp the 
idea that the religion of Christ is a missionary religion or 
nothing — that the Son of God made atonement for the sins 
of the whole world. By repeated strokes of discipline, by 
numerous developments of his providence, God was com- 
pelled to teach this lesson to men very unwilling to learn it. 
We can see, therefore, that this persecution was a necessary 
step in the development of Christianity. Grievous at the 
time, it brought forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness in 
all following years. 

Baptists are forbidden to persecute by their fundamental 
principle that the church consists only of those regenerated 
by the Spirit of God. This being true, men cannot be com- 
pelled to become members of the church; each man's 
spiritual state is a matter between himself and God alone. 
To persecute is to attempt to bring the unregenerate into the 
church. But even if Baptists were not thus estopped by 
principle from persecution, they should be warned against it 
by the fact that it has been so unsuccessful in all the ages. 
It has seldom suppressed what the persecutors regarded as 
heresy, but it has often scattered the heretics and promoted 
the spread of their teaching in regions to which otherwise it 
might never have penetrated. 



CHRISTIANITY A MISSIONARY RELIGION 57 



Philip in Samaria. — Philip, one of the deacons of the 
church at Jerusalem, seems for a time to have stepped into 
the place made vacant by the death of Stephen. He 
preached in the capital of Samaria, and wrought miracles as 
signs of divine approval of his teaching. The people with 
one accord gave heed, and many believed and were bap- 
tized, 1 ' both men and women." (Note again that there is 
no sign of the baptism here of any but adult believers — all 
the baptized were believers at all events.) It is not said who 
baptized them, but it is fair to infer that Philip did, for we 
read of nobody else in connection with this first work in 
Samaria ; and a little later we find him baptizing the 
eunuch. We do not know that there were at this time in 
Samaria any ministers or ' 1 bishops, ' ' if there were yet such 
officers anywhere, — they were not needed until there were 
churches, — and the functions afterward committed to them 
were necessarily performed either by the apostles or by be- 
lievers who had not been set apart to the ministerial office 
and work. Philip's case, however, certainly proves that in 
an emergency any believer may administer the ordinances 
of the Christian church — even without the authorization of a 
church, if there is no church to authorize him. Any Chris- 
tian man who should find himself beyond the pale of civiliza- 
tion and churches, and should preach and gather around 
him believers, would need no ordination or authority save 
his Christian discipleship, to baptize them and help them to 
organize themselves into a Christian church, and such a 
church would be just as "regular" and "valid" as any 
other in the world. As a matter of good order, in our 
churches in general, it is proper that the administration of 



58 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



the ordinances should be committed to the ministry. But 
there is an important difference between good order and 
divine right. 

The Sin of Simon. — The apostles do not seem in this 
case, as they did in others, to have hesitated to accept this 
work as of God, for they sent Peter and John to carry it still 
further. The Samaritans had already received the Holy 
Spirit, in that they had been converted, but not with the 
power of Pentecost as a miraculous attestation of their faith. 
This gift was now bestowed upon them, in answer to the 
prayer of the apostles. One Simon, a sorcerer by profession, 
who had been supposed to manifest the great power of God, 
is said to have been among those who " believed" in con- 
sequence of Philip's preaching, but it is evident that this 
means no more than that he became a professed believer 
and was baptized on such profession. To the real power of 
the gospel he was a stranger, as was speedily shown. 
Greatly impressed by the results of the bestowal of the Holy 
Spirit — which here, as at Jerusalem, probably was followed 
by the speaking with tongues and possibly by the power of 
working miracles in some cases — and mistakenly supposing 
that the apostles had the power to confer this gift on whom- 
soever they would, he offered them money. He doubtless 
thought that this was some magical power whose secret they 
could impart to him ; and that if he were able at will to con- 
fer the gift of the Holy Spirit, it would become a great 
source of revenue to him. The stern rebuke of the apostles 
certainly awakened his fears, as his reply showed ; but had 
his subsequent history evidenced any real penitence, we 
can hardly conceive that Luke should have failed to record 



CHRISTIANITY A MISSIONARY RELIGION 59 



such a fact. ' 1 Thou hast neither part nor lot in this mat- 
ter, ' ' seems to be the final word. 

Note. — Simony, or the sin of trafficking in sacred things, is a sin 
that has largely prevailed in the corrupted churches, particularly in the 
church of Rome. The sacraments of that church have been openly 
sold for money in many periods of her history, and practices that can 
hardly be distinguished from such sale still exist. It was the sale 
of indulgences for money by Tetzel that precipitated the Reformation. 
In all countries where church establishments prevail, simony takes 
the form of buying and selling ecclesiastical preferment. Although it 
is now contrary to law, livings in the church of England are still 
bought and sold, and until recently the " advowson," or right of pre- 
sentation, was as much property as a church pew, and could be as 
lawfully bought and sold. Similar abuses have at times prevailed in 
the church of Scotland. 

LITERATURE. 
On the general subject, chap. 18 of the " Expositors' " Acts will be 
found particularly stimulating and useful. See also " Philip the 
Evangelist" in Smith; Neander's " Planting and Training of the 
Christian Church," book II. On the Jewish proselytes, see Schurer's 
" Jewish People in the Time of Christ," \ 31, 5 ; and compare Far- 
rar's " Life of Paul," chap. 7. Stifler's "Introduction," \ 8, will 
be found helpful in connection with Lessons 6, 7, and 8. 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
I. In what defect of character did Simon's sin originate? 2. Had 
the apostles alone the power to confer the gift of the Spirit as is 
claimed by Romanists and High Churchmen? 3. What were the 
" unclean spirits " mentioned in verse 7 ? 4. Which was the city of 
Samaria at that time, and what names did it bear? 5- Mention other 
historical instances in which God made persecution the means of 
spreading his truth. 



VIII. 



PHILIP AND THE EUNUCH. 

The Eunuch a Type. — The historic importance of this 
lesson consists not in the rank and power of this eunuch, 
but in his representative character. When Philip met him he 
was reading aloud from the Old Testament, or at least from 
the roll containing the prophecy of Isaiah. This, it is proba- 
ble, he was reading in the Septuagint (or Greek) version, 
since there is no reason to suppose that either he or Philip 
could read the original Hebrew. It is quite safe to infer 
from his possession of, and interest in this Scripture, that he 
was a convert to the Jewish religion. The number of such 
converts was very large in the apostolic times. There were 
not only the " proselytes of righteousness" — or those who 
had become Jews to the full, and obeyed the whole law — but 
also those ' ( devout" men and women who accepted the 
Hebrew doctrine of monotheism, yet did not profess to ob- 
serve all the Mosaic ceremonial requirements. 

Between these two extremes there were many gradations. 
There were numerous Romans like the centurion of Luke 
7 : 2-10, of whom the Jews themselves said, " He is worthy 
. . . for he loveth our nation and himself built us our syna- 
gogue." Such attended the Jewish synagogue worship, 
were known as " devout," God-fearing men (Acts 10 : 2), 
and taught the truth to those under them (Acts 10 : 7, 8). 
Though generally friendly to these converts, the Jews still 
60 



PHILIP AND THE EUNUCH 6l 



regarded them as Gentiles, with whom it was not lawful for 
a strict Jew to eat (Acts 10 : 28). There were instances, 
indeed, in which men were made proselytes by force, and 
Judaism at one time showed a tendency to propagate itself 
by the sword, as Mohommedanism did later. The Idu- 
mseans, according to Josephus, were offered the choice be- 
tween death, exile, and circumcision, and during the Macca- 
bean period the Ituraeans were "converted" in the same 
forcible way. 

Among these converts the apostles naturally found the 
most willing hearers of the gospel of Christ. The ' ' de- 
vout ' ' Gentile had adopted the precious truth of Judaism — 
he had learned to worship the true God and had renounced 
his idols and heathen superstitions. He believed in the 
authority of the Old Testament Scriptures, and yet in their in- 
terpretation was free from rabbinical subtleties and traditions. 
He lacked the race jealousy of the Jew, the bigoted adher- 
ence to a preconceived notion of the Messiah that prevented 
the mass of the chosen people from accepting Jesus of Naz- 
areth as the Christ of God. Accordingly, we find that 
wherever the apostles preached, the gospel found a ready 
reception among this class. 

Of this particular man we know only what Luke's text 
tells us. From his being called an Ethiopian we need not 
infer that he was a negro ; the word may denote either 
residence or extraction. He was in the service of the Queen 
of Ethiopia ("Candace" is the name of a dynasty, like 
"Pharaoh" or "Caesar," not of a person), and "of great 
authority. ' ' 

The Preaching of Philip. — Philip "beginning from 



63 the; dawn of Christianity 

this Scripture, preached unto him Jesus." From what has 
preceded, we may accurately infer the character of this 
preaching. It was very like that of the risen Lord, when 
he discoursed to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus 
(Luke 24 : 25-27). Its chief element was the exposition 
of the Old Testament Scriptures as they related to the 
person and work of the Christ of God, in this conforming 
to what we have seen to be characteristics of the apostolic 
preaching generally. We may also infer, perhaps, that this 
instruction included some mention of baptism as the ap- 
pointed mode of confessing Christ before the world ; other- 
wise it is difficult to account for the question of the eunuch 
in ver. 36. The teaching of Philip bore immediate fruit ; 
falling into a heart already prepared for its reception by the 
Spirit of God, the good seed of the kingdom sprang up at 
once. As Christian workers we may learn this lesson from 
the conversion of the eunuch : Whenever the Holy Spirit 
speaks to our hearts, impelling us to join ourselves to some 
one and tell him of Christ, we are warranted in believing 
that the same Spirit has been working in the heart of that 
one, preparing him to receive the message we are bidden 
deliver. No one who has had much experience in personal 
work among the unconverted will question this, and the 
inexperienced may find in this truth a stimulus that will 
overcome their timidity in speaking to men of Christ. 

The Baptism. — The simplicity and clearness of this 
narrative make certain things very plain to one who will 
read it with an open mind :* 

1. This baptism was an immersion. It is difficult, if not 
impossible, to find any question regarding this in a com- 



PHIUP AND THE EUNUCH 



63 



mentary on the Acts by a scholar of high standing. 
The remark of Dean Plumptre will serve as an example of 
what Pedobaptist scholars in . general say of this passage, 
when they do not take refuge in a significant silence : " The 
Greek preposition might mean simply ' unto the water,' but 
the universality of immersion in the practice of the early 
church supports the English version. The eunuch would lay 
aside his garments, descend chest deep into the water, and 
be plunged under it ' in the name of the Lord Jesus ' ; the 
only formula recognized in the Acts. So it was, in the half- 
playful language in which many of the Fathers delighted, 
that ' the Ethiopian changed his spots. ' ' ' The only ground 
for questioning the character of the act, is a supposed diffi- 
culty about the lack of water in this " desert." But any tract 
of land thinly settled or unfit for tillage was a ' ' desert ' ' in 
the New Testament usage. There were, and still are, sev- 
eral roads from Jerusalem to Gaza, and none of them is a 
desert in the sense we now commonly attach to the term — 
an arid and uninhabitable waste, without vegetation or 
water. There are fountains at several places on these 
roads, issuing from a perennial source, and forming brooks 
or pools. Dr. Robinson (a Presbyterian) supposes the site 
of the baptism to have been " somewhere southwest of 
Latron, ' ' and adds : ' ' There is a fine stream of water, 
called Marubah, deep enough in some places even in June 
to satisfy the utmost wishes of our Baptist friends." This 
supposed difficulty vanishes, like many others of the same 
sort, in the presence of fuller knowledge. 

2. It was the baptism of a believer — that is, of one who 
made a personal and credible profession of his faith in 



6 4 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



Christ. There are instances in the New Testament — Simon, 
the sorcerer, is a notable case — of the baptism of those who 
professed belief, whose profession was credible at the time, 
but afterward turned out to be false. When Baptists speak 
of their churches as organized on a spiritual basis, consisting 
only of the regenerate, they do not mean to imply that persons 
actually unregenerate never obtain membership in them ; but 
only that those known to be unregenerate are not received. 
No church can do more than require a credible profession 
of faith from candidates for baptism. God alone reads the 
heart. The confession of the eunuch is plain, whether ver. 
37 is genuine or not. The prevailing view now among New 
Testament scholars is, that this verse did not form part of 
the original writing of Luke, but was inserted from some 
early baptismal liturgy. But if this theory is true, it indi- 
cates that baptism on profession of faith was the general 
usage of the early church, otherwise such an interpolation 
could never have been made. 

3. The baptism followed immediately on the eunuch's 
profession of faith. So far as the record shows, it lacked the 
authority of any church or ecclesiastic, and was adminis- 
tered by one who is not known to have received ordination 
as a minister. These facts constitute part of the common 
law of the New Testament regarding the administration of 
the ordinances. They show that the usage of later times, 
doubtless established early for the sake of good order, of 
restricting the administration of the ordinances to the min- 
istry, and of administering them only by authority of a 
church, was not uniform in New Testament times, especi- 
ally in the earlier years of the church. Even Baptists some- 



PHILIP AND THE EUNUCH 



65 



times forget that their tradition has not the force of law, and 
sometimes forget to be scrupulously exact in adherence to 
their principle that the New Testament is the supreme 
authority in faith and practice. 

LITERATURE. 

On the general subject, see chap. 20 in the "Expositors" Acts; 
Thatcher's " Sketch of the History of the Apostolic Church," chap. 
2, on " The Expansion of Judaism." 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 

I. What was the status of the "devout?" and what wasexpected 
of them in the keeping of the law ? 2. What important bearing has 
this on the history of the apostolic Christianity ? 3. The baptism of 
proselytes among the Jews — its forms and history ? 4. Why is the 
genuineness of ver. 37 doubted ? 



IX. 



THE CONVERSION OF SAUL. 

Saul's Previous I<ife. — Saul was born in Tarsus, one 
of the great cities of Asia Minor, as celebrated for wealth 
and culture as Athens or Alexandria. From a comparison 
of Acts 7 : 58 with Philem. 9, we may fairly infer that he 
was born a few years later than Jesus. His family were 
probably Hellenists and Pharisees (Phil. 3:5). Every 
Jewish boy was taught a trade, and Saul was taught tent- 
making, an extensive industry of Tarsus, the long fine hair 
of the goats of that region being employed in making the 
tents. Of the father we know only that he was a strict He- 
brew, and a Roman citizen (Acts 22 : 28) ; the mother is 
barely mentioned, and nothing is known of her. Saul would 
naturally get his early education in the family and at the 
synagogue school ; though there were excellent Greek schools 
and even a university in Tarsus, he would probably not be 
allowed to attend these. Still, he would naturally acquire 
something of Greek learning, though his few quotations show 
no wide acquaintance with Greek literature. At an early 
age, about thirteen, according to Jewish custom, he would be 
sent to Jerusalem to be instructed in the college of rabbis, 
at that time presided over by the noted Gamaliel (Acts 22 : 3), 
still known among the Jews as the Great Rabbi. Large in- 
ferences are warranted as to his ability and progress in learn- 
ing from the fact that while still ' ' a young man ' ' he occupied 
66 



THE CONVERSION OF SAUL 67 



so prominent a place and became the leader in the persecu- 
tion of the Christians. His mastery of the Scripture and 
thorough knowledge of rabbinical lore are shown in his extant 
writings. 

On the Way to Damascus. — Bearing letters from the 
Sanhedrin to the synagogues of Damascus, Saul set out on 
his self-imposed task of extirpating the Christian heresy 
among the Jews of the dispersion. As he journeyed, "a 
bright light gleamed around him," which Paul afterward 
called a powerful light (Acts 22 : 6), exceeding the splendor of 
the noonday sun (26 : 13). He heard also a voice out of 
heaven, speaking words audible to him though not to those 
about him. These heard the voice, however, and doubtless 
saw the light. This appearance was not a mere subjective 
illusion (which means delusion) on the part of Saul, as some 
have inferred, though the appearance of jesus was to him 
alone. The physical impressions — the falling from the horse, 
the sudden blindness — of this vision were not less striking 
than the spiritual. It does not appear that Saul's conversion 
was accomplished on the spot, but his conviction was sudden, 
complete, overwhelming. He saw at once that while verily 
believing he was doing God service he had been fighting 
against God. What meditations, what bitterness of soul, 
what struggles with pride, those three days and nights wit- 
nessed, when he neither ate nor drank, but continued in 
prayer before God ! The complete change does not seem to 
have come until Ananias laid hands on him, that he might 
receive his sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost. Then 
there fell from his eyes as it were scales — and as the light of 
day broke once more on his sight, "the light of the knowl- 



68 THE: DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



edge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ ' ' flooded 
his spiritual vision. He arose and was baptized ; his first 
act, even before taking food, being to confess publicly the 
Christ whom he had before dishonored. 

Saul, the Christian Preacher. — There is some diffi- 
culty in arranging the chronology of Luke' s account so as to 
harmonize with Paul's own narrative in Gal. i : 11-24. It 
seems probable, however, that the preaching in Damascus, 
recorded by Luke, began immediately after Saul's conver- 
sion. Not only is this implied in the "straightway" of 
ver. 20, but in all the following circumstances — the amaze- 
ment of the Jews at this man's sudden conversion, and their 
vivid recollection of his former persecutions of Christians. 
Resentment against this change of allegiance would natu- 
rally lead to the plot to kill him. From this danger he was 
saved by the ready wit of some unnamed disciple, whose 
house overhung the wall. Paul was let down in a basket 
through a window (2 Cor. 11 : 33) through a wall, and to this 
day travelers are shown the place in the wall of Damascus 
by which, according to tradition, he escaped. 

Saul in Arabia.— Between ver. 25 and 26, however, 
there intervenes a period of "three years," which, after the 
Hebrew custom of reckoning, might be only one full year 
and parts of two others. During this time Saul was in 
Arabia. What he was doing in this period of retirement we 
do not positively know ; the general view of Christian schol- 
ars has been that he spent this time, not in conferring with 
flesh and blood, but in communion of spirit with Christ him- 
self, directly from whom he ever afterward professed to have 
received his gospel. In meditation and prayer and renewed 



THE CONVERSION OF SAUL 69 



study of the Scripture, we may conceive of him as preparing 
himself for his lifelong work of preaching the gospel. After 
this preparation he returned to Damascus, where his visit 
was probably brief, and thence he went to Jerusalem to visit 
Peter, by whom he was hospitably received, and with whom 
he tarried fifteen days (Gal. 1 : 18). The other disciples, 
however, as Luke tells us, were afraid of him, and very 
naturally ; they had heard much of Saul the persecutor, but 
little of Saul the disciple, and were fearful that his profession 
of faith in Christ was the ruse of an unscrupulous enemy. 
Then Barnabas did a noble thing ; he introduced Saul to 
the other apostles and vouched for the genuineness of his 
conversion. The time of this visit to Jerusalem is usually 
placed at about A. D. 39. During this brief stay at Jerusalem, 
Saul preached the gospel, especially to the Hellenists. He 
had not been long engaged in this work when the Jews 
plotted to kill him. The brethren advised him to depart, 
and he departed from the city, partly in comformity with 
their advice, but also because informed in a vision (Acts 
22 : 17) that God would have him work elsewhere. It was 
fourteen years before he revisited the city. 

Saul in Syria and Cilicia. — For the next four or five 
years, Saul preached the gospel in his native country. Luke 
gives us scanty information about this work, for his history 
turns aside for a time from the labors of Saul to follow the 
work of Peter and describe the problem that confronted the 
churches of Christ when the Gentiles began to accept the 
gospel. That these were busy years for Saul we learn from 
his own words (Gal. 1 : 21-23), and we know the character 
of the man too well to suppose that he could be idle so long 



jo the dawn of Christianity 



if we had no information whatever about him. The extent 
of his labors and their results we may in part infer from Acts 

15 : 23-41. The churches afterward found in Cilicia can be 
accounted for on no plausible ground save their having been 
established by Saul during these years. Dean Howson per- 
tinently suggests that, at this time, 1 ' some of these Christian 
'kinsmen' whose names are handed down to us (Rom. 16 : 
7, 11, 21), possibly his sister, the playmate of his childhood, 
and his sister's son, who afterward saved his life (Acts 23 : 

16 seq.), may have been gathered by his exertions into the 
fold of Christ." 

LITERATURE. 
On the general subject, see Conybeare and Howson's " Life of 
Paul,"' chap. 3; Taylor's " Paul, the Missionary," chap. 2; Stalker's 
" Life of Paul," chap. 2; Thatcher's " Apostolic Church," chap. 3 ; 
Farrar's " Life of Paul," chap. 10. See also Schiirer's "Jewish Peo- 
ple in the Time of Christ," especially § 22, on " The State of Cul- 
ture in General," and \\ 26-30. On the different accounts of Paul's 
conversion, see Clark's " Harmonic Arrangement of the Acts," pp. 
172-174. 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
I. What other arrangement of the chronology might be made ? 2. 
Write out, as nearly as may be in the exact words of Luke and Paul, 
a connected narrative of Paul's life after his conversion, down to the 
point we have reached. 3. Where was Paul during the ministry of 
Jesus ? 



X. 



THE GENTILES RECEIVE THE GOSPEL. 

Peter at I,ydda and Joppa. — The time of the occur- 
rences related in Acts 10-12, is approximately fixed by the 
fact that Herod became king of Palestine early in A. D. 41, 
and died in the summer of A. D. 44. The first part of these 
three years was a period of peace and rapid growth. Peter 
improved this opportunity to make a missionary tour among 
all the saints in Syria. We have particulars of his labors in 
two places. Lydda is on the ancient line of travel from 
Jerusalem and Caesarea. His tour was marked by the 
working of two notable miracles — the healing of a paralytic 
at Lydda, and the raising from the dead of Tabitha, or 
Dorcas. We are told that in the case of both these ' ' signs, ' ' 
many were convinced by them and believed in Christ. That 
Peter was fast emancipating himself from narrow Jewish 
prejudices is shown by his staying at Joppa with one Simon, 
a tanner. This occupation was regarded as unclean by 
strict Jews, and those engaged in it were avoided by scrupu- 
lous observers of tradition. 

The Vision of Cornelius. — Cornelius, a centurion of the 
Italian cohort, then stationed at Caesarea, was one of those 
Romans who had learned from the Jews to worship the true 
God. He was a fair type of those converts who had not 
sought to become Hebrews, but honestly tried to serve God 
in the station where he had placed them. He was still 

7i 



73 THK DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



a Gentile and a heathen, therefore, in the opinion of the 
strict Jews ; and it was no more lawful to hold ordinary- 
social intercourse with him than with any other Gentile. He 
was a devout man, and his prayers and alms had commended 
him to the favor of God, as tokens of his sincerity ; God was 
now minded to bring him into the full light of his truth. A 
vision was given to Cornelius in which he was commanded 
to send for Peter, and he obeyed without questioning what 
he recognized as the will of God. 

The Vision of Peter. — At the same time the Spirit of 
God was working on the mind of Peter, to prepare him to 
accept this invitation — which, left to himself, we may believe 
he would have declined. Peter was praying at the noon 
hour on the flat housetop of his host's residence — doubtless 
screened, like Oriental housetops in general, by a balustrade, 
and often used as a place of prayer. Here, as Neander happily 
says, ' ' The divine light that was making its way to his spirit 
revealed itself in the mirror of sensible images which pro- 
ceeded from the existing state of his bodily frame." He 
beheld in a vision a great vessel, containing all manner of 
living things, and heard a voice saying, "Rise, Peter, kill 
and eat." And when his Jewish training inspired the reply, 
"Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is 
common or unclean," it was only to be rebuked by the 
divine word, "What God hath cleansed make not thou 
common." 

Peter Obeys the Vision. — The significance of this 
vision was immediately made clear to the wondering Peter 
by the coming of the messengers from Cornelius. Let it 
always be remembered to the honor of Peter that he hesitated 



THE GENTILES RECEIVE THE GOSPEL 73 



not a moment. Though the voice of the Spirit commanded 
him to lay aside the prejudices of a lifetime, and transgress 
what he had been taught in the name of God from his youth 
up, he obeyed. Certain brethren accompanied him, to 
whom the apostle afterward appealed for confirmation of his 
account (Acts n : 1, 12). When Cornelius presented him- 
self before him — doing homage in the Oriental manner, not 
"worshiping" him as a religious act, which would be 
incompatible with the character of Cornelius — -Peter declined 
this homage, which might easily be mistaken for the rever- 
ence due to God alone. It is worthy of note, in this connec- 
tion, that Jesus never forbade any act of homage or respect 
offered to him — a fact that clearly signifies his consciousness 
that he was worthy of the worship of men. 

Conversion and Baptism of Cornelius. — -On learning 
from Cornelius why he had been summoned, Peter immedi- 
ately preached Christ to the centurion and those who had 
assembled at the latter' s house. Being already a servant of 
God, according to his light, Cornelius needed only to be 
fully enlightened to become a Christian. The gospel of 
Christ fell upon his soul like water on the parched earth ; 
it was the truth for which he had been groping, and he 
accepted it without question or hesitation. While yet the 
apostle was speaking, the power of the Holy Ghost 
came upon those that believed, so that they spoke with 
tongues and glorified God, to the great amazement of the 
Jews present. Obviously, there could be no objection to the 
baptism of these believers, for who on earth has the right to 
reject those on whom God has put the seal of acceptance ? 
Cornelius and his believing friends were therefore baptized. 



74 the dawn of Christianity 



Here note once more that only believers who had received 
the Holy Ghost were baptized ; and that the baptism was 
administered at once by the apostle, without any ecclesias- 
tical formalities whatsoever. 

The IJfFect on the Church. — When Peter returned to 
Jerusalem, he found his action sharply questioned by the 
Jewish Christians. His defense consisted simply in a recital 
of the facts, without argument, save in his closing words : 
' 1 Forasmuch as God gave them the like gift as he did unto 
us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was I that I 
could withstand God ? ' ' The question was not merely per- 
tinent, it was unanswerable, and they criticised Peter no 
further, but glorified God, saying, ' ' Then hath God also to the 
Gentiles granted repentance unto life." Thenceforth there 
was no question among Christians that the gospel was to be 
preached to Gentile as well as Jew. This conversion of Cor- 
nelius, therefore, marks an era in the history of the church, 
and completes the forward step taken when the apostles 
preached the gospel in Samaria. It fixed permanently the 
character of Christianity as a missionary religion — not the 
religion of one favored nation, or of an age, but for all the 
world and for all time. 

It is true that the status of Gentile Christians was not fixed 
by this recognition that they had a right to the gospel. 
Prejudice dies hard, and religious prejudice is particularly 
long-lived. The idea that Christianity was a sort of graft 
upon Judaism was very slow in disappearing, and remnants 
of it may be traced, to the very close of the apostolic period. 
There were few Jews as yet who had grasped the whole truth, 
and even Peter was not one of them, as his subsequent con- 



THE GENTILES RECEIVE THE GOSPEL 75 



duct proved. It was reserved for Paul, as we shall see later, 
to show the true relation of Christianity to Judaism, to teach 
that the law was fulfilled in Christ, and that the believer 
in him is no longer under the bondage of the law. 
For the time the prevailing opinion among the Jewish 
Christians was that Gentiles who believed on Christ 
and were baptized should also become Jews and keep the 
whole law ; and for many years afterward this was the con- 
tention of a large party in the church, though it never had 
the sanction of the church as a whole. 

LITERATURE. 
On the general subject, see Conybeare and Howson, chap. 4; 
Stalker, chap. 4 ; Taylor, chap. 3 ; Stiver's " Introduction," sec. 9. 
On the relation of Gentile Christians to the Jews and to Jewish Chris- 
tians, see Lechler's " Apostolic and Post- Apostolic Times," First Part, 
chap. 2. 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
I. What was the nature of the " visions " described in this lesson ? 
2. Does God now reveal his will through dreams ? 3. What are we 
to learn from this lesson regarding God's method of revealing his 
truth ? 4. What bearing, if any, has the case of Cornelius on devout 
men who never hear the gospel of Christ ? 



XL 



A YEAR AT ANTIOCH. 

The Gospel in Antioch — Barnabas, — Luke now turns 
back to resume his account of the labors of the scattered 
disciples in Syria. Antioch was the capital of this province 
and the residence of the Roman governor. It was reckoned 
the Rome of the Orient. When the preachers arrived at 
Antioch is not definitely stated. The church at Jerusalem, 
as we see from such passages as Acts 1 1 : 22, both assumed 
and was accorded a kind of primacy among the early 
churches. It does not appear that it interfered in any. way 
with their independence, but as the mother church its advice 
was sought and its leadership was followed by the other 
churches. The church at Jerusalem sent Barnabas to see 
the things of which they had heard. This is not the first 
time that we read of Barnabas, but we are now told more 
about him. His action toward Saul showed the native 
nobleness and generosity of his character, and now it is 
added that "he was a good man and full of the Holy Ghost 
and of faith." His name was originally Joses or Joseph, 
but because of his eloquence in exhortation he was sur- 
named "Son of Consolation." He was one of the first to 
sell his property for the general good of the church (Acts 
4 : 37). His preaching at Antioch was so blessed that 
" much people was added to the Lord." 

Paul in Antioch. — But Barnabas felt the need of a 
76 



A YEAR AT ANTIOCH 



77 



helper, and naturally turned to Paul, who was from the first 
recognized as the special apostle to the Gentiles. Barnabas, 
like many men distinguished for the warmth of their emotions 
and power of oratory, seems to have been impulsive and defi- 
cient in practical wisdom. This was Paul's strong side, and 
the two men admirably supplemented each other. Barnabas 
therefore sought out Paul, who was at Tarsus. " He needed 
assistance, he needed the presence of one whose wisdom 
was greater than his own, whose zeal was an example to all, 
and whose peculiar mission had been miraculously declared. 
Paul recognized the voice of God in the words of Barna- 
bas, and the two friends traveled in all haste to the Syrian 
metropolis." (Conybeare and Hovvson.) "And it came to 
pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the 
church, and taught much people. ' ' 

This was probably A. D. 44, and it was a critical time in 
the history of Christianity. It is hardly too much to say 
that, humanly speaking, this year insured the perpetuity of 
Christianity. Ten years or more had passed since our Lord's 
death and resurrection, and now, here at Antioch, his disci- 
ples were first called by his name. The name, as it is given 
by Luke, betrays a Latin rather than a Greek origin. We may 
safely conjecture that it was given to the followers of Christ 
by the heathen people of Antioch, rather than assumed by 
the former in the first place ; but whether it was originally a 
mere descriptive epithet or a term of reproach and ridicule, it 
was soon adopted by believers everywhere as their proper 
name. It is this, no doubt, to which the Apostle James 
refers when he speaks of "the worthy name by which ye 
are called" (James 2:7). 



78 THK DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



But this year at Antioch did much more than give a name 
to the new religion ; it prepared the way for a great forward 
missionary movement, which resulted before the close of the 
century in the preaching of the gospel throughout the 
Roman world. It brought Paul to the fore-front among the 
apostles of Christ, where he ever after remained until his 
death. In short, this year transferred the center of influence 
from Jerusalem to Antioch, and transferred the sphere of 
apostolic labors from Judea to the Roman empire. It made 
the religion of Christ one of the great world religions, by 
freeing it from the shackles of provincialism and sectarian- 
ism. All of this was not fully accomplished in this year, to 
be sure, but all of it was made possible, and much of it was 
actually done. 

Barnabas and Saul at Jerusalem. — The famine pre- 
dicted by Agabus is described in vague terms. The word 
mistranslated "over all the world," is commonly used by 
the Greek and Roman writers to describe the Roman 
Empire. It was, however, often used in a still more re- 
stricted sense, as by Josephus to describe Palestine only. 
This Jewish historian speaks of a famine which prevailed in 
Judea during the reign of Claudius, and carried off many of 
the inhabitants. This would fit into the chronology of the 
Acts quite accurately. According to the statements of 
Josephus, this famine began about the close of A. D. 44, 
and was felt with more or less severity for several years. 
The disciples at Antioch resolved to send relief to the breth- 
ren in Judea. We see in verse 29, the first mention of the 
principle of Christian giving. There is no mention of a 
tithe or other fixed proportion in the New Testament ; the 



A YEAR AT AN'flOCH 



79 



rule is "according to ability" or "as any one was pros- 
pered" (i Cor. 1 6 : 2). When they had raised this sum for 
the relief of the Judean brethren, what was more natural 
than that they should send it by the hands of Barnabas and 
Saul ? This order of the names suggests also, that until 
now, and perhaps for some little time later, Barnabas was 
looked upon as the more prominent man of the two. But 
ability tells in the service of Christ as elsewhere, and hence 
speedily Saul or Paul is found in the position of leadership. 

Renewed Persecution at Jerusalem. — Herod Agrippa 
I., grandson of Herod the Great, began about this time a 
persecution of the Christians, and one of its first victims was 
James, one of the sons of Zebedee, and the brother of John, 
sometimes called James the Elder, to distinguish him from 
James the Younger, the brother* of our Lord. Thus was ful- 
filled to him the word of Jesus, ' ' My cup indeed ye shall 
drink " (Matt. 20 : 20-28). Paley finds in this passage one 
of the undesigned proofs of Luke's accuracy as a historian : 
* 1 There was no portion of time for thirty years before, or 
ever afterward, in which there was a king at Jerusalem. . . 
except the last three years of Herod's life, within which 
period the transaction here recorded took place." Another 
incident of this persecution recorded by Luke is the arrest 
and miraculous release of Peter. This persecution was 
among the last acts of the wicked Herod's life. We are 
told that his death was due to the stroke of God's wrath, 
because he impiously permitted the people to pay him divine 
honors. We learn from Josephus that Herod died in great 
agony after a brief illness ; and, so far, the secular historian 
confirms the sacred narrative. 



8o 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



LITERATURE. 
On the general subject, see Taylor's " Paul the Missionary," chap. 
4; Stalker's " Life of Paul," chap. 5 ; Farrar's "Life of Paul," 
chap. 16; Stifler's "Introduction," sec. 9 ; Neander's "Planting 
and Training," book III., chap. 2. On the character of Barnabas, 
see Howson's " Companions of St. Paul." On Antioch during this 
age, see Wallace's " Ben Hur," book 4, chap. I, 2, 5, 12; book 5, 
chap. 12. 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
I. What scriptural evidence is there that the name Christians was 
not chosen by the followers of Christ for themselves in the first 
instance ? 2. What light does ver. 30 throw on the question of the 
organization of the apostolic churches? 3. Was the treatment of 
Peter's guard exceptionally severe? 4. What do we know of Peter's 
subsequent history. 



XII. 



THE FIRST FOREIGN MISSIONARIES. 

The Return to Antioch. — After performing their mission 
as messengers from the saints at Antioch for the relief of 
those at Jerusalem, Barnabas and Saul returned to Antioch, 
probably about the beginning of A. D. 45. That their stay 
in Jerusalem was brief may be inferred, not only from what 
is said of it in the Acts, but from Paul's silence regarding it in 
Gal. 2:1. It is true that in the latter passage Paul is not 
giving an exhaustive autobiography ; but if the visit had 
been prolonged he could hardly have failed to mention it, 
since in that case he must have become more widely known 
among the Judean Christians. Here they resumed the 
work that had been so blessed during the previous year, 
apparently with no thought of seeking any other field of 
labor. But the hour had struck for a farther advance, in 
obedience to the Lord's great commission ; the words "Go 
ye into all the world " were to be more literally obeyed. 

Ordained and Sent Forth. — The church at Antioch 
apparently possessed a plurality of elders — since this title 
would properly have been applied to the ' 8 prophets 1 ' and 
"teachers " mentioned, five in number. A plural eldership 
was certainly common, perhaps usual, in the New Testa- 
ment period, though not universal ; it seems to have been 
general in Asia, less frequent in Europe. There is some 
uncertainty as to the origin and significance of this plural 

F 81 



82 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



eldership. Of the many explanations proposed this seems 
the more probable : In the great cities the church would 
often become too large to meet regularly as one body, and 
would be divided for convenience into several congrega- 
tions, meeting separately, and each having its elder or 
teacher. But these congregations were not recognized, 
during the New Testament period at least, as separate 
churches ; they were parts of one church. We read 
often of the church at Jerusalem, the church at Ephesus, 
the church at Antioch, but never of the churches of Jeru 
salem, or Ephesus. Have we not departed from the New 
Testament model in organizing separate churches within 
the limits of town or city, and by so doing lost power and 
made possible a great deal of friction and antagonism ? 

As these prophets and teachers engaged in their ministry 
—the whole church perhaps participating with them in 
prayer and fasting, awaiting the will of God — the Holy 
Ghost commanded them to set apart for a special work of 
evangelization Barnabas and Saul. In form this command 
is addressed to the church, or to the associates of these two ; 
but they no doubt had a similar call of the Spirit to engage in 
this work. How the Spirit spoke we are not definitely told ; 
in the absence of any statement, it is perhaps safe to infer 
that he spoke then, as he does now, by imparting to all, 
without consultation with each other, a simultaneous con- 
viction that it was the duty of these men to engage in this 
work. This setting apart of the first foreign missionaries 
was what we now describe as an ' ' ordination " and was 
formally accomplished by prayer and the laying on of 
hands. The laying on of hands was evidently a repre- 



THE FIRST FOREIGN MISSIONARIES 83 



sentative act, not the act of the whole church, and it is 
reasonable to suppose (particularly in view of 1 Tim. 4:14) 
that the ' 1 presbytery, " the associate teachers ana prophets, 
were appointed for this service. 

Paul received this ordination no less than Barnabas. As 
the apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul needed no ordina- 
tion to his work, no credentials from council or presbytery. 
In all his epistles he disclaims human ordination and human 
approval of his gospel, asserting that he had received his 
gospel and authority to proclaim it from Christ direct. Yet 
now he is going forth as the official representative of the 
church at Antioch in particular, and in a sense, of all Chris- 
tians, to carry this gospel into the farthest parts of the 
Roman empire ; and he does not disdain or refuse the 
formal sanction of his character and work that this solemn 
setting apart implies. Whether Barnabas had had any previ- 
ous ordination, or had hitherto preached in obedience to a 
Divine call alone, we are not told, and one person's guess is 
as good as another's. We are free to speculate and infer as 
much as we please about these and like matters, and to for- 
mulate for ourselves as complete and consistent a scheme of 
New Testament church polity as we like, provided we do 
not teach our speculations a?id theories as facts, and seek, to 
impose them on others as tests of orthodoxy and fellowship. 
A good many Baptists are in great danger of forgetting that 
their guesses have not the authority of Scripture. Let us 
not be wise above that which is written. 

The "Work Begun. — -Making their way from Antioch to 
Seleucia they took ship for the island of Cyprus — a distance 
made in a few hours with a fair wind. Their first work done 



8 4 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



here was among their own countrymen, in the synagogues of 
Salamis. We learn from ancient historians that the Jews 
were very numerous in Cyprus in the following century, and 
such was doubtless the case at this time, since they had 
synagogues (note the plural) in Salamis. The effect of this 
preaching is not described ; very likely it was not great. At 
Salamis, we are told, they had John Mark (first mentioned 
in the closing verse of chap. 12) as an assistant. The 
immediate context might imply that he assisted in preach- 
ing the word of God, but the fact that he was not set apart 
for this work with Barnabas and Saul would seem to be 
decisive against this inference. It is more likely that he 
assisted them by so relieving them of other cares that they 
were free to give all their time and strength to preaching the 
gospel. 

The work at Paphos, on the other side of the island, was 
marked by at least one striking conversion. A Jewish sor- 
cerer had imposed upon the Roman proconsul, who, though 
he was ' ' a man of understanding, ' ' was not wholly free 
from the superstition of his age and race, and was in danger 
it would seem of being led astray by these pretensions. His 
discernment was shown, however, in his prompt recognition 
of the truth as proclaimed by the apostles, particularly when 
to this was added the miraculous infliction of blindness on 
the sorcerer as a punishment for his contumacy. Straight- 
way Sergius Paulus believed, and though it is not so said, 
we may infer that others followed his example. The effect 
of the conversion of a man so influential must have been 
great, and this was by no means a single instance of the 
kind ; and yet it remained true throughout the apostolic age, 



THE FIRST FOREIGN MISSIONARIES 85 



as it has since been the experience of the church, that ' ' not 
many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble 
are called" (1 Cor. 1 : 26-31). 

It is at this point in the history that Luke notes Saul's 
change of name and begins uniformly to call him Paul. 
The inference is not fair, however, that the change of name 
was made at this time ; and yet more fanciful must be pro- 
nounced the theory that the new name was assumed out of 
compliment to his distinguished convert, Sergius Paulus. 
The use of two names in ancient times was quite common, 
and as the apostle's father was a Roman citizen he may 
have borne a Roman name, similar in form to his Jewish 
name, from his birth. We have a similar instance of the 
double name in the case of Silas, whose Roman name was 
Sylvanus. (Compare 1 Thess. 1 : 1 with Acts 18:5 seq.) 
Many ingenious theories concerning this double name have 
been propounded by theologians and critics, ancient and 
modern, all of whose ingenuity, however, has cast no ray 
of real light on the subject. All that we know is that Saul 
was also called Paul. 

LITERATURE. 

On the work in Cyprus, see Taylor, chap. 5 ; Conybeare and How- 
son, chap. 5. On the subject of ordination, as generally understood 
by Baptists, see Hiscox's " New Baptist Church Directory." 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
I. What distinction, if any, between "prophets" and "teachers" 
in 13 : I ? 2. Does the mention of fasting, in connection with the 
ordination of Barnabas and Saul, imply that it is the duty of Chris- 
tians now to fast ? 3. Ancient astrology, soothsaying, and magic. 



XIII. 



THE FIRST MISSIONARY TOUR. 

Antioch in Pisidia. — From the time of the apostles* 
labors in Cyprus, we read no longer of ' ' Barnabas and 
Saul" (except in one instance, Acts 15 : 16), but of "Paul 
and his company," or of ''Paul and Barnabas." This 
change in the order of the names is significant ; Barnabas, 
as probably the elder, and certainly the elder in Christian 
experience, and the better known man among the disciples, 
had hitherto taken the precedence. Now, Paul, by reason 
of his superior gifts, his zeal, his capacity for leadership, 
began to take the first place. There was no strife for the 
pre-eminence between these brethren, and nothing in the 
history of Barnabas becomes him better than the modest 
cheerfulness with which he, who had been accustomed to 
lead, accepted the place rather of a follower. 

On leaving Cyprus, a great disappointment befell Paul 
and Barnabas — "John departing from them returned to 
Jerusalem." Luke is very reticent regarding the causes 
of this departure, but from Acts 15 : 38 it is evident that 
Paul deeply resented the act, not for personal reasons, but 
for the work's sake. Whether John Mark left the apostles, 
just when he might have been of greatest service to them, 
because he feared persecution or because he had personal 
affairs at Jerusalem to look after, at any rate Paul concluded, 
whether justly or unjustly, that he was not one who had 
86 



THE FIRST MISSIONARY TOUR 87 



counted all things but loss for Christ's sake, and held not 
even his own life dear if he might save men. 

Arrived at Antioch in Pisidia — a town in the central table- 
land of Asia Minor — Paul and Barnabas sought the Jewish 
synagogue on the Sabbath. It was the courteous custom in 
the synagogues to ask strangers to speak after the reading 
of the law (for a parallel case in our Lord's life, see Luke 
4 : 16-30). Perhaps some hint had reached Antioch that 
these Jews from Jerusalem preached a strange doctrine, and 
they may have been curious to hear what it was. 

Paul's discourse — for he was the preacher, not Barnabas — 
was an argument from the Old Testament for the Messiah- 
ship of Jesus, the proof of which, the apostle urged, was 
definitely completed by the fact that God had raised Jesus 
from the dead. Through this Saviour he preached unto 
them forgiveness of sins. The sermon did more to arouse 
interest than to produce conviction, and the apostles were 
besought to preach again the following Sunday (the best texts 
omit the word « ' Gentiles" in verse 42). That the apostles 
were not idle during the intervening week we may confi- 
dently assume. Their private labors among the people so 
deepened the interest that the town was greatly stirred, and 
' ' almost the whole city ' ' came on the succeeding Sabbath 
to the synagogue. This aroused the race prejudice of the 
Jews. If this gospel was for all men, if it was to obliterate 
the distinction between Jews and Gentiles, they would have 
none of it. They interrupted Paul, and disputed his argu- 
ment from Scripture, until the apostle, seeing that there was 
no hope of convincing them, said, " Lo, we turn to the Gen- 
tiles. ' ' The result was the conversion of a large number of 



88 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



the Gentiles, and the founding of a Christian church in 
Antioch. But many wives of influential men in the city 
were Jewish proselytes, and through these the Jews managed 
to stir up such a persecution against Paul and Barnabas that 
they left the city. This is almost the only case on record in 
which the apostles experienced opposition from the prose- 
lytes ; among this class the gospel was generally received 
with gladness, or at any rate with respect. 

At Iconium. — "When they persecute you in one city 
flee to another, ' ' said our Lord, in sending out his disciples 
to proclaim the truth. The apostles went to Iconium, about 
sixty miles southeast of Antioch, leaving behind them dis- 
ciples full of joy and of the Holy Spirit. Their experience 
at Antioch was almost exactly repeated — Jewish jealousy re- 
fusing the gospel and stirring up the Gentiles (proselytes) 
against them. Here we have the only note of time that 
occurs in the account of this missionary journey ; the apostles 
abode here 4 ' a long time. ' ' Everything is relative, and as 
it seems impossible to assign more than two years for this 
entire tour, a stay of a few months at Iconium might be 
spoken of as a long time, compared with the brief stays else- 
where. An attempt was made here to stone the apostles, 
but they became aware of it and escaped. 

At I/ystra. — Almost immediately after the apostles ar- 
rived at Lystra (the site of which is not definitely known), 
the city was greatly stirred by the working of a notable mira- 
cle ; a man lame from birth was healed at the word of Paul. 
There was no thought, if there had been any possibility, of 
questioning the reality of the miracle, and the multitude 
rightly inferred that nothing less than Divine power could 



THE FIRST MISSIONARY TOUR 89 



have caused this man to walk. In their ignorance and 
superstitution they erred in also inferring that the apostles 
must be gods come down to them in the likeness of men. 
Paul and Barnabas appear to have been ignorant of this, for 
there is no evidence that they understood the dialect of Ly- 
caonia ; it was not until afterward that the significance of the 
people's acclamations dawned upon them. Meanwhile, the 
people, having fully persuaded themselves that Barnabas 
was Jupiter (Zeus) and Paul, Mercury (Hermes), prepared to 
offer sacrifice and pay them divine honors. The apostles 
were with difficulty able to persuade them to forego their 
purpose and to listen to the gospel. It is difficult to believe 
that their purpose could so quickly have been turned, and 
that the crowds who would have worshiped were shortly 
after ready to stone the apostles. How long a time inter- 
vened between verses 18 and 19, we cannot tell ; probably 
some days at least, very likely some weeks or even months, 
but at the best the transition of feeling was both speedy and 
violent. Even allowing for the enmity of the Jews from 
Iconium, it is a remarkable picture of a people's fickle- 
ness. 

When we compare verses 6 and 19 with 2 Cor. 11 : 25, we 
see a fine specimen of undesigned coincidence. Had the 
narrative of the Acts been a late compilation, as some critics 
have maintained, it would have been almost impossible to 
secure the exact accuracy that is so generally observed when 
we compare the Acts with parallel passages in the Epistles. 
It would have been so easy, for instance, in a narrative care- 
lessly compiled from documents more or less unhistorical, to 
represent Paul as stoned several times. Such errors would 



9 o 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



not only have been easy, but they could not have been 
avoided by a late composer or compiler. 

The persecutions on this tour were evidently among the 
most severe that Paul ever endured. Twenty years later, in 
writing to his beloved son in the faith, he speaks feelingly 
of what things befell him at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra 
(2 Tim. 3:11). It should seem, from Acts 16 : 1 as com- 
pared with 1 Tim. 1 : 2, and other similar passages, that 
Timothy was converted through Paul's preaching during this 
visit ; if this is a correct inference, the apostle had at least 
one great consolation when, in after years, he thought of his 
sufferings at Lystra. 

The Return to Antioch. — The sojourn at Derbe seems 
to have been brief, and the apostles then retraced their steps 
to Antioch in Syria, whence they had started. Some months 
were doubtless occupied in this return, the chief feature of 
which was the strengthening of the churches and the perfec- 
tion of their organization. This is the first time that we read 
explicitly of the appointment of elders, or bishops, in the 
churches, though the office had doubtless existed for some 
years in the older churches. Much difference of opinion has 
been expressed regarding the word translated in the King 
James version " ordained," and in the Revised version, 
' ' appointed, ' ' and regarding the respective shares of the 
apostles and the churches in this ordination or appointment. 
Doubtless analogies may be found in the Baptist foreign 
mission fields of to-day. The apostles would wield by their 
office, experience, and character an influence in the churches 
hardly second to any prelatical power ; the difference be- 
tween the two would lie in the manner and spirit of their re- 



THE FIRST MISSIONARY TOUR 91 



spective exercise. The information given us about these 
appointments is scanty, and guessing is not very profitable 
or conclusive. We are safest, perhaps, in interpreting this case 
in the light of other Scripture and the general tenor of New 
Testament teaching, and concluding therefrom that as much 
initiative and liberty of choice was encouraged in each case 
as the church was in a condition to use wisely. This is cer- 
tainly better than to conclude, upon this very imperfect evi- 
dence, that the apostles exercised an authority that utterly 
precluded the free choice of pastors by the churches. But 
even if we admit that the apostles had the exclusive appoint- 
ing power and exercised it, their office and work were ex- 
ceptional. We do not find in the New Testament that they 
handed down this authority to any successors. Their au- 
thority was personal, due to their character and to their spe- 
cial Divine call, and it died with them. Gifts of prophecy 
and inspiration are not transmitted by human choice and 
ecclesiastical ceremonies. 

LITERATURE. 

On the general subject, see Taylor, chap. 6 ; Conybeare and How- 
son, chap. 6 ; Stalker, pp. 77-85 ; Thatcher's " Apostolic Church," 
chap. 5 ; Farrars " St. Paul," chap. 19. Stirler's " Introduction," 
sec. 12, contains much that is valuable in connection with this and the 
preceding lesson. 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
I. The geography of the tour. Read Hackett and consult a good 
atlas. 2. Condense, in your own words, the argument of Paul's ser- 
mon. 3. What Greek stories of Zeus and Hermes would suggest to 
the people at Lystra their error ? 



XIV. 



THE COUNCIL OF JERUSALEM. 

Its Cause and Time.— The greatest battle in the his- 
tory of the apostolic church was now to be fought, and it 
was plain to be seen that on its issue would depend the char- 
acter of the church for all time probably, for that generation 
certainly. From the beginning there had been among the 
Jewish Christians men who could see nothing beyond the 
narrow horizon of Judaism. They had attempted the im- 
possible task of putting the new wine into old wine skins — 
of attempting to put Christianity, like a new patch, on the old 
garment of Judaistic ceremonial law. They sought to make 
their consciences not merely the rule of their own lives 
(which was right), but the rule of all Christian lives (which 
was wrong). Still in bondage to the law, they were unwill- 
ing that others should enjoy the liberty wherewith Christ 
had made them free. They were not willing at first that 
the gospel should be preached to Gentiles at all ; but when 
God's providence had clearly indicated that the Gentiles 
were to have the gospel, they fell back on the demand that 
every Gentile convert should become a Jew and be a debtor 
to the whole Mosaic law. On the other hand were men like 
Paul, large-minded enough 'to see that in Christ the whole 
law had been fulfilled ; that a religion of types and cere- 
monies was now an anachronism, and must soon die out 
among those who accepted Jesus as the Messiah ; and that 
92 



THE COUNCIL OF JERUSALEM 



93 



to bind Gentile converts with the obligations of this mori- 
bund law was to lay on them a burden too grievous to be 
borne, and would nullify the preaching of the gospel among 
the Gentiles. 

These views had been growing more and more irrecon- 
cilable for a series of years, and the "irrepressible conflict" 
came to a crisis during the residence of Paul and Barnabas 
at Antioch, after the first missionary tour. A party of Juda- 
izers came to the church there and began actively propagat- 
ing their views. They represented obedience to the Mosaic 
law as necessary to salvation — a gross and palpable perver- 
sion of the teaching of Christ, and of the gospel hitherto 
preached by all the apostles, who had set forth faith in 
Jesus Christ as the sole condition of salvation. Paul saw 
that this substitution of works for faith as the way of salva- 
tion, if it prevailed in the church, would utterly subvert it 
and transform its character. His pre-vision was justified by 
the later history of the church, when this doctrine succeeded 
in obtaining lodgment. Paul and Barnabas therefore with- 
stood these Judaizers. But they apparently alleged that they 
had behind them the moral support of the church at Jerusalem 
and of the apostles, and this gave them a hold on some. 
Accordingly it was resolved to send Paul and Barnabas as 
delegates from the church at Antioch to the church at Jeru- 
salem to consult about this question. This action does not 
necessarily imply that the church at Antioch was in any 
sense under the authority of the church at Jerusalem or of 
the apostles ; only that it respected their experience, their 
presumably superior knowledge of Christ's teachings, and 
wished to be guided by their counsel in this important mat- 



94 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



ter. Such was the moral influence of the apostles and the 
Jerusalem church at this time that their decision seemed 
likely to end the controversy, and furnish all the churches 
of Christ a rule of action that they would hasten to follow. 

Nature of the Meeting. — This is usually called the 
' ' council ' ' of Jerusalem, but the propriety of that term is 
often disputed. It seems to have conformed pretty closely 
to what Baptists call a " council," and very little to what in 
later church history was called a ' 'council." In general 
church history, the word is used to describe an assemblage 
of delegates, in theory representing the whole church, whose 
decisions have the force of law throughout the church. In 
this meeting, so far as appears on the face of the account, 
but two churches were represented ; it is evident that the 
church at Jerusalem did not, as a whole, take part in it (Acts 
15 : 6) ; but whether their representatives were elected, or the 
elders and apostles acted as such by virtue of their official 
position, is not clear. Councils are a very common thing 
among Baptists, though this is the only recorded instance of 
one during apostolic times. It seems quite evident from 
such accounts as we have that the New Testament churches 
called pastors and set them apart to the ministry without the 
intervention of a council. In requesting the advice of sister 
churches frequently, Baptist churches simply apply to the 
circumstances of our own day a New Testament principle. 
Even were it not recognized in the New Testament at all, a 
council has a self-evident basis in the law of Christian 
brotherhood ; every believer owes it to his brother to assist 
him with advice when requested, and every church owes the 
same duty to its sister churches. The custom is general at 



THE COUNCIL OF JERUSALEM 95 



the present day to invite a considerable number of churches 
to send delegates to a council ; whereas in this New Testa- 
ment case the advice of only one church was asked. But 
when a Baptist church calls a council, it is a matter of ex- 
pediency not of principle, how many churches it shall invite 
— whether one or fifty is no matter, save as giving weight to 
the conclusions reached. In this case, the advice of the 
Jerusalem saints would outweigh that of all the Judean 
churches combined. In essence, therefore, this appears like 
a modern Baptist ' ' council. ' ' 

The Council and its Conclusion. — The debate was 
warm, as verse 7 testifies, and able, as the reported speeches 
of Peter and James show. The part of Paul and Barnabas 
was the modest one of telling facts, in which they wisely fol- 
lowed the example of Peter in the case of Cornelius. No 
eloquence could have been half so convincing. The speech 
of James ended the matter. What he proposed was, in 
effect, a compromise. He had not yet risen to the height 
from which Paul obtained such a sweep of vision, but what 
he saw he saw clearly. He could not sustain the Judaizers 
in their full contention, yet he was not quite ready to admit 
that the believer in Christ was freed from the law. He pro- 
posed, therefore, that the obligations of the "proselytes of 
the gate ' ' should be required of the Gentile believers ; and 
his opinion prevailed and became the decision of the council. 

Notwithstanding the apparent tone of authority in which 
that decision speaks, we are warranted in believing that it 
was not set forth as anything more than advice. In the ac- 
count of the council, and in its official decision, we merely 
read that "it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us," 



g6 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



and the document itself is called an *'* epistle" (ver. 30). 
It is not until some time later that a term is applied which 
might in itself warrant a different view of the decision. In 
Acts 16:4, the " epistle " from Jerusalem is called dog7nata } 
which the Authorized and Revised versions alike translate 
by the word " decrees." It is true that this was the Greek 
word used to translate the Latin decreta, which described 
the " decrees" of Caesar (Acts 17 : 7), but this would not 
be the meaning naturally suggested to a Jew. It would 
rather suggest to him the precepts, doctrines of his own law, 
and the word is used by Paul in this sense (Eph. 2:15; 
Col. 2 : 14, in both instances the Revised version translating 
it '* ordinances.") 

Whether advice or decree, the finding of the council of 
Jerusalem seems to have been little respected among the 
churches. In Antioch it may have been observed for a time, 
but the Judaizers repeatedly refused to abide by its terms. 
Beyond the allusions of Paul in Gal. 2 : 2-10 and of James 
in Acts 21 : 25, both by way of historical reminiscence rather 
than of appeal to a recognized obligation, there is no trace 
of the decision in the history of the apostolic churches. No 
evidence is found in the accounts of the subsequent labors 
of Paul and Barnabas among the Gentiles that they enjoined 
the keeping of these laws on the converts. Fornication they 
would of course forbid, but of things strangled and offered 
to idols they apparently said little. Paul's teaching on the 
latter point, if we may judge by 1 Cor. 8, diverged much 
from the ' ' decree ' ' of the council, showing pretty clearly 
what he thought of its binding force. In that epistle the 
eating of meat offered to idols is treated as no sin in itself, 



THE COUNCIL OF JERUSALEM 



97 



not even as the transgression of any rule that was accepted 
among the churches, but as a thing whereby a weak brother, 
who did not realize that " an idol is nothing in the world," 
might be led back into the sin of idolatry. Therefore, the 
apostle does not say, "Abstain from meats offered to idols 
because the council of Jerusalem so ordered" ; but, "If 
meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the 
world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend. 

What the council actually accomplished was a demonstra- 
tion to the Christian churches at large that there was no 
conflict of authority and doctrine between Paul and Barnabas 
on the one hand, and the rest of the apostles on the other. 
This was shown, not only by the council's decision, but by 
the occurrence at its conclusion : " And when they perceived 
the grace that was given unto me [Paul], James and Cephas 
and John, they who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me 
and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should 
go unto the Gentiles, and they unto the circumcision ; only 
that we should remember the poor, which very thing I was 
also zealous to do" (Gal. 2:9, 10). Paul's letters to the 
churches show how faithfully he fulfilled his pledge (1 Cor. 
16 : 3 ; 2 Cor. 8:9; Rom. 15 : 2 ; compare Acts 24 : 17.) 

This was the Waterloo of the Judaizing party, and the 
winning of this battle made possible the subsequent history 
of the apostolic church. The struggle continued for some 
years longer, and at least once waxed fierce again in 
Antioch, as we shall later have occasion to note ; but these 
were only the expiring struggles of error. The church was 
now prepared for a larger advance in missionary effort, and 
the providence of God quickly led Paul into this open door. 

G 



98 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



LITERATURE. 
On the council in general, see Taylor, chap. 7; Conybeare and 
Howson, chap. 7; Farrar, chap. 22. On the struggle between Paul 
and the Judaizers, see Thatcher's "Apostolic Church," chap. 6; 
Weiss, " Biblical Theology of the New Testament, vol. I., pp. 197- 
203. Compare also Stifler's " Introduction," sec. 13. 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
I. Make a paraphrase of Peter's speech. 2. Do the same with 
that of James, condensing both, so as to give the line of thought only. 
3. Read the epistle to the Galatians carefully, in the Revised or Bible 
Union version. 



PART III 
THE GOSPEL IN EUROPE 

"And unto the uttermost parts of the earth." 
A. D. 51-63. 



XV. 



THE SECOND MISSIONARY TOUR FIRST PART. 

The Return to Antioch. — One immediate effect the de- 
cision of the council at Jerusalem had — it stopped the mouths 
of the Judaizers who had been disturbing the believers at 
Antioch. The church had peace, being comforted and con- 
firmed by the exhortations of Judas and Silas, and by the 
continued labors of Paul and Barnabas. This continuance 
could not have been very long, if we may interpret in the 
ordinary way Luke' s phrase, ' ' after some days. ' ' The im- 
pulse toward a second missionary tour came from Paul, now 
the recognized leader in the work among the Gentile churches; 
but at the very beginning a sharp contention arose between 
him and Barnabas over the question of again taking with 
them John Mark, who had abandoned the apostles and the 
work in Pamphylia. From the little that we know of the 
circumstances, Paul seems to have been justified in his judg- 
ment, and Barnabas seems to have been unduly swayed by 
natural affection toward his kinsman ; but the quarrel is 
another matter. If Christian brethren cannot agree in judg- 
ment, it is their duty to avoid sharp contentions, and to differ 
in a spirit of love. It may be that Barnabas was becoming 
jealous of the growing authority of Paul ; not every man, 
even though he is a sincere Christian, has the grace to say, 
as John the Baptist said of Jesus, " He must increase, but I 
must decrease. ' ' Few of us make our lives conform to the 

101 



I03 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



apostolic precept, " in honor preferring one another." If 
jealousy influenced Barnabas, he received his due reward, 
for henceforth he drops completely out of the history. 

The Man of Macedonia. — Paul chose Silas as his com- 
panion and departed, and at Lystra he added Timothy to 
his company. His plan seems to have embraced no larger 
project than the visiting and strengthening of the churches 
established on his first missionary journey. As they visited 
the churches they ' • delivered them the decrees for to keep, 
which had been ordained of the apostles and elders that 
were at Jerusalem." This "decree" or "finding" of the 
council was the Magna Charta of the Gentile churches, and 
would be cherished by them as an unanswerable defense in 
case of further trouble by the Judaizers. While Paul and 
Silas were permitted thus to visit and encourage the churches, 
they were forbidden by the Holy Ghost to remain and speak 
the word. To this statement, however, which might seem 
fully warranted by the text, one exception should probably 
be made. To this time, seemingly, must be assigned the 
preaching of the gospel to the Galatians, of which we only 
know what can be gathered from the scattered hints in Paul' s 
epistle written later to them. Luke may have omitted refer- 
ence to this tour because of his lack of personal knowledge 
of its incidents. When Paul and his companions essayed 
to pass into Bithynia, the Spirit would not suffer them, so 
they came down to Troas, no doubt by this time quite per- 
plexed as to their duty, and anxious to know whither the 
Spirit would have them go. God's plan was revealed to 
Paul in the night (whether he was asleep is not stated), in a 
vision of a man of Macedonia saying to him, "Come over. 



THE SECOND MISSIONARY TOUR 103 



into Macedonia and help us." Here we find the first evi- 
dence that Luke had joined the party, for he no longer 
writes "they," but "we." It seems impossible to draw 
any other conclusion than the one indicated from this sig- 
nificant language. 

At Philippi. — Thus the second great period in the his- 
tory of the apostolic church opened with the first proclama- 
tion of the gospel of Christ in Europe. Taking ship at 
Troas, Paul and his companions went via Neapolis to 
Philippi, a Roman colony, and the chief city of Eastern 
Macedonia. Here there seem to have been no synagogues, 
but a place of prayer without the gate, by the river-side — an 
enclosed space in the open air, such as is often found conse- 
crated to such use among Oriental people. Hither certain 
proselytes, mostly women, were accustomed to resort on the 
Sabbath, and to them Paul preached the gospel. One of 
these hearers, Lydia, a seller of purple and a native of Thya- 
tira, was converted, and she and her household were bap- 
tized. This, the first case of household baptism mentioned, 
is often adduced as at least probable proof of infant baptism, 
it being argued that there must have been young children in 
such a household. The best reply to this argument will be 
a few comments on this passage by eminent Pedobaptist 
scholars : 

De Wette : " There is nothing here which shows that any except 
adults were baptized." Meyer: "When Jewish or heathen fami- 
lies became Christians, the children in them could have been baptized 
only in cases in which they were so far developed that they could 
profess their faith in Christ, and did actually profess it ; for this was 
the universal, absolutely necessary, requisition for the reception of 



104 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



baptism. On the contrary, if the children were still unable to believe, 
they did not partake of the rite, since they were wanting in what the 
act pre-supposed. The baptism of children, of which no trace is 
found in the New Testament, is not to be considered as an apostolic 
institution, but arose gradually in the post-apostolic age, after early 
and long-continued resistance, in connection with certain views of doc- 
trine, and did not become general in the church till after the time of 
Augustine. The defense of infant baptism transcends the domain of 
exegesis, and must be given up to that of dogmatics." Olshausen : 
" It is improbable in the highest degree that by her household, chil- 
dren of an immature age are to be understood ; those baptized with 
her were relatives, servants, grown-up children. We have not, in 
fact, a single sure proof-test for the baptism of children in the apos- 
tolic age, and the necessity of it cannot be derived from the idea of 
baptism.' ' 

After her conversion, Lydia constrained the apostle and his 
friends to abide at her house— an invitation that Paul was 
apparently unwilling to accept, lest the disinterestedness of 
his labors should be questioned. The church at Philippi 
ever had a warm place in his affections, and from this church 
he seems in later years to have accepted pecuniary aid 
(compare 2 Thess. 2 : 5, 7, 9 with Phil. 4 : 16 ; 2 Cor. 
11 19; Phil. 4 : 10). His stay in this fruitful field was cut 
short by the masters of a slave girl, supposed to have a gift 
of prophecy from Apollo, and therefore the source of much 
profit to her owners. She was in fact a demoniac, and 
Paul, in the name of Christ, cast the demon out of her. 
Paul and Silas were, therefore, dragged before the praetors, 
and were accused of illegally making proselytes. The mob 
demanded their punishment and the magistrates gave sen- 
tence accordingly. The conviction was illegal, since there 
was no formal trial, and the punishment was illegal, for to 



THE SECOND MISSIONARY TOUR IO5 



scourge Roman citizens was an offense of exceeding gravity. 
How Silas obtained Roman citizenship we do not know, but 
Paul's words leave no doubt as to his possessing it (verse 
37). Confinement in the stocks, being a species of torture, 
was equally unlawful. 

This imprisonment showed how God makes the wrath of 
man praise him. An earthquake shook the prison, while 
Paul and Silas prayed and praised God in the night-watches, 
and all the prisoners were loosed of their bonds. The jailer, 
knowing that his life was forfeited if his prisoners escaped, 
and supposing that to be the fact, would have taken his own 
life. Being restrained by Paul, and deeply impressed by 
this miracle, he brought Paul and Silas out and gave them 
every possible attention and token of respect. The gospel 
was preached to him and to all that were in his house, and 
the same hour he and all his believed and were baptized. 
In this second case of household baptism, it should be noted 
that all who were baptized were old enough to have the gos- 
pel preached to them, and that infants are excluded by the 
explicit statements of the narrative. 

In the morning, when the magistrates would have dis- 
charged them, Paul and Silas insisted on their rights as 
Romans, and the magistrates were greatly disturbed ; the 
infliction of the punishment had been so hasty that they 
probably had no time to assert their rights before. Now 
they were determined that the erring magistrates should 
make public reparation by coming in person to the prison, 
and leading them forth in such a way that the whole city 
might know they had been unjustly treated, and that no 
stain should rest on their reputation. This the praetors 



106 the; dawn of Christianity 

were glad to do, to escape the consequences to themselves 
should their conduct, in condemning unheard and scourging 
two Romans, be reported to Caesar. They were liable to 
death and the confiscation of all their property for what they 
had done, and no wonder Paul and Silas were humbly 
" entreated " to leave the city. This they did, after a brief 
sojourn at the house of Lydia, during which they comforted 
and exhorted the brethren. 

At Thessalonica. — Paul and Silas departed from 
Philippi, but it seems reasonably certain that Luke remained. 
It is established in the case of Timothy by Acts 17 : 14, 15, 
that if he also remained at Philippi for a time he soon 
rejoined Paul and Silas, but we have no more indications of 
Luke being in their company. The abrupt change back 
to the third person would indicate that he was left behind to 
comfort and strengthen the young church of that place. 
The first city at which Paul and Silas made a stay of any 
length was Thessalonica. Here their experience was almost 
an exact repetition of their labors in other cities — first the 
apostle preached in the Jewish synagogues, winning some 
of the Jews, together with i( a great multitude " of the prose- 
lytes ; then the Jews succeeded in stirring up the mob 
against them, and they were brought before the magistrates 
on the charge of treason. This charge troubled the authori- 
ties, for it was a very delicate thing to be suspected of har- 
boring traitors : so they took security from Jason that the 
peace should not be further disturbed by his friends, and 
that the latter should speedily depart from the city, which 
they did. 

At Berea. — Going to Berea, the Jews there were found 



THE SECOND MISSIONARY TOUR 



by the apostle to be "more noble" ; they gave the word a 
candid hearing, searching the Scriptures regarding the Mes- 
siah, and many of them believed. But the Jews of Thessa- 
lonica stirred up opposition here, and his friends conducted 
Paul to Athens. 

LITERATURE. 
On the general subject see Taylor's " Paul the Missionary," chap. 
10, II ; Conybeare and Howson's " St. Paul," chap. 8, 9. For ex- 
cellent notes elucidating many questions connected with the tour, see 
Clark's " Harmonic Arrangement of the Acts," pp. 203-219. The 
following will also be found helpful : Neander, " Planting and 
Training of the Christian Church," book III., chap. 6 ; Stifler's " Intro- 
duction," $ 14 ; Farrar's " Life of Paul," chap. 24-26 ; Lewin, vol. I., 
chap. 10. 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
I. Was there any foundation, in Paul's preaching, for the charge 
made at Thessalonica ? 2. Why do we hear nothing of Luke and 
Timothy during the persecution at Philippi? 3. Make for your- 
selves, from the references to the subject in the epistle to the Gala- 
tians, an account of Paul's labors among them. 4. What facilities 
for baptism was the jail likely to contain ? 



r 



XVI. 



THE SECOND MISSIONARY TOUR SECOND PART. 

According to the King James version the brethren got 
Paul away by a ruse ; having set out ostensibly for the sea, 
they proceeded to Athens by land, Silas and Timothy re- 
maining in the city to give greater effect to the stratagem. 
The Revised Version, following a better Greek text, reads, 
' ' The brethren sent forth Paul to go as far as the sea, ' ' im- 
plying that he did actually go from Berea to Athens by water, 
a journey of about three days in a sailing craft, with a fair 
wind. The journey by land would have been two hundred 
and fifty miles, and would have occupied more time ; and 
had this route been pursued, we might naturally expect the 
names of some of the places through which Paul passed, 
after Luke's usual method. His stay at Athens was brief, 
probably not more than a few weeks at most, while he was 
waiting for Silas and Timothy. During this time he was 
probably quite alone. It has been plausibly conjectured, 
from the spirited account of his stay and the report of his 
sermon, both of which read like the work of one who saw 
and heard what he recorded, that Luke had rejoined him. 
It seems hardly possible, however, to reconcile Luke's pres- 
ence with the peculiarities of style manifest in his writing, 
particularly his changes from the third to the first person, 
and vice versa. The better view seems to be that Luke re- 
108 



THE SECOND MISSIONARY TOUR 109 



mained in Macedonia, and was separated from Paul for a 
period of several years. 

Paul in Athens. — The idolatry that prevailed at Athens 
made a great impression on the apostle's mind. He did not 
now for the first time come into contact with polytheism, but 
Athens was peculiarly ostentatious in its worship of every 
known deity. A contemporary Greek writer declares that 
Athens had more images of the gods than all the rest of 
Greece put together. Wherever the eye might range it 
would fall on temples, altars, and statues of the gods. The 
streets were thronged with the sellers of idols, and an an- 
cient writer satirically says that it was easier to find a god 
than a man in the city. No wonder Luke describes it as 
" full of idols." 

After his usual plan, Paul addressed himself first to his 
own countrymen and the proselytes who met in the syna- 
gogues ; but it was not long ere some Athenian philosophers 
encountered him. How accurately, as we learn from Greek 
writers, Luke hits off the character of the Athenian people 
and their insatiable curiosity for novelties, when he tells us 
that ' * they spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell 
or to hear some new thing. ' ' Paul did not lack for listeners, 
therefore, even though they mocked as they heard ; and at 
their invitation, apparently, he undertook to expound his 
doctrine from the steps of the Areopagus. ' ' He stood, ' ' says 
Bishop Wordsworth, "on Mars' Hill, in the center of the 
Athenian city, with a full view of it. The temple of the 
Eumenides was immediately below him ; and if he looked 
to the east, he beheld the Propylaea of the Acropolis front- 
ing him, and the Parthenon rising above him ; and on his 



no 



THK DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



left the bronze Colossus of Minerva, the champion of Athens; 
and the temple of Victory to the right ; behind him was the 
temple of Theseus ; and a countless multitude of smaller 
temples and altars in the Agora andCeramicus below him." 

A nobler pulpit, a more intelligent audience, no preacher 
could wish ; and the sermon was worthy of the occasion. It 
has been pronounced a model of the apologetic style of dis- 
course. It is marked by clearness, brevity, and simplicity 
of style. Paul began by congratulating his hearers that they 
were very religious, — not " superstitious," which would have 
been anything but a propitiatory beginning, — so religious 
that, not content with erecting altars to every deity they 
knew by name, they had even built one "to an unknown 
god." This Being whom you recognize as existing, but of 
whose nature and perfections you have no adequate con- 
ception, I reveal unto you. It is he who made the world, a 
Spirit that dwells not in temples, who has made of one all 
men, and given them faculties by which they may know him. 
This is the teaching of your own poets. Therefore we 
ought not to degrade the worship of this God into idolatry, 
and although God has borne with men's ignorance, he re- 
quires them now to repent, before they come to the appointed 
judgment, which has been made certain by the resurrection 
of Christ. 

Paul's words had been heard quietly if not patiently, until 
he came to this phrase, "raised from the dead." To his 
audience of Greek philosophers that appeared mere non- 
sense, madness almost. Neither Stoics nor Epicureans be- 
lieved in the immortality of the soul, hence a resurrection 
was to them unthinkable. A part of his hearers broke out 



THE SECOND MISSIONARY TOUR III 



into sarcastic and ironical comments ; some expressed a 
purpose to hear more from him at a later day ; a few be- 
lieved. Whether a church was founded in Athens we are 
not told, and there is no subsequent reference in apostolic 
history to such a church. It seems reasonably certain, from 
the detailed accounts of his movements given us, that Paul 
never visited the city again, though he often passed through 
Greece. His preaching in Athens has been unfavorably 
contrasted, by F. W. Robertson and others, with that in 
Corinth, where he determined to know ' ' only Christ and 
him crucified." But this is unfair; we have only the in- 
troduction to Paul's sermon at Athens, and how many 
preachers would be willing to have their sermons judged by 
the introduction ? He was going on to preach Christ and 
him crucified, but the moment he came to Christ raised from 
the dead, the body of his discourse, his audience refused to 
listen and the sermon was never finished. 

Paul in Corinth. — More time was spent in Corinth by 
the apostle than in any other cities save Antioch and Ephe- 
sus, so far as we are informed or can judge, yet less space 
is given to his sojourn here than to his labors in places 
where he spent a very brief time. Here he became ac- 
quainted with Aquila and Priscilla, and living at their house, 
supported himself by laboring at his trade of tent-maker, 
while he preached the gospel. Silas and Timothy joined 
him here, and assisted him in his labors. Rejected by the 
Jews, among whom he first preached, he turned to the Gen- 
tiles and found willing hearers and made many converts. 
Here we have another case of household baptism, but 
Crispus and all his house believed ; it was, therefore, the 



112 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



baptism of believers only, as in all other cases recorded in 
the New Testament. Here at Corinth the believers werj 
not chiefly .proselytes, as at other places, but native Cor- 
inthians, and in this fact we may find the key to the under- 
standing of the Epistles that Paul afterward wrote to this 
church. 

There was one sensational episode in the work of Paul at 
Corinth — his arraignment before the proconsul Gallio. This 
officer was a brother of Seneca, the Roman philosopher, 
and was known as the " pleasant Gallio" — he had that 
easy temper and complaisance that make a man a social 
favorite. The prosecution of Paul was illegal, and Gallio 
so pronounced it ; and when the Greeks beat the defeated 
Jews before his very bema, Gallio " cared for none of these 
things." He saw that the prosecution was a case of relig- 
ious spite, and his verdict probably was '* served them 
right." That he rendered a just judgment in this case was 
due to his lack of moral earnestness rather than to love of 
justice, or he would have protected the Jews. 

The 35pistle to the Thessalonians, — It was during his 
stay in Corinth, as is plain from internal evidence, that the 
two letters to the church at Thessalonica were written. 
Timothy, after joining Paul at Athens, had been sent to them 
and brought back cheering news. At once Paul composed 
the first letter, probably toward the close of A. d. 52, and 
the second a few months later, early in 53. They are of 
special interest, as the earliest of all the New Testament 
writings. Their dominant tone is ethical ; they are letters 
whose first intent was to warn, encourage, establish the 
faith, and develop the character of the church. The one 



THE SECOND MISSIONARY TOUR 113 

doctrine discussed at any length is that of the second com- 
ing of Christ, and this is treated mainly in its practical and 
ethical relations, as a source of comfort to the saints amid 
trouble and persecution, and as an incitement to spiritual 
vigilance and sobriety. The keynote of these Epistles, it 
has been well said, is hope. They call the church at Thes- 
salonica, and Christ's churches everywhere, to fix their eyes 
upon their true hope. " For what is that hope ? Is it not 
the hope of the revelation of her Lord in the glory that 
belongs to him ? No hope springs so eternal in the Chris- 
tian breast. It was that of the early church, as she be- 
lieved that he whom she had loved while he was on earth 
would return to perfect the happiness of his redeemed. It 
ought not less to be our hope now. ' Watching for it, wait- 
ing for it, being patient unto it, groaning without it, looking 
for it, hasting unto it ' — these are the phrases which the 
Scripture uses concerning the day of God. And surely it 
may well use them, for what, in comparison with the pros- 
pect of such a day, is every other anticipation of the 
future?" (Dr. Milligan.) 

LITERATURE. 

On the general subject, see Conybeare and Howson, chap. 10, II ; 
Taylor, chap. 14; Stalker, chap. 6. On Aquila and Priscilla see 
Howson's " Companions of St. Paul," p. 1 78. See also, Farrar, 
" Life of Paul, chap. 27-29; Lewin, vol. L, chap. 1 1. 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION, 
I. Make an analysis of the Epistles to the Thessalonians. 2. What 
passages in these Epistles give the clue to the time and place of their 
composition? 3. Does Paul teach an immediate coming of Christ? 

H 



XVII. 



PAUL AT EPHESUS. 

The time covered by this lesson is about three years, but 
for convenience the chronological order of events will not be 
exactly followed in this and the succeeding lesson. Paul's 
stay at Ephesus was broken in half by a third missionary tour 
(Acts 1 8 : 23), and it will be more convenient to consider 
his Ephesian work as a whole, taking the tour in connection 
with a later visit to Greece, narrated in chap. 20. 

The First Visit to Uphesus. — The first visit was a 
brief one — an incident of the return to Antioch. Priscilla 
and Aquila (the order of the names is significant) accom- 
panied Paul on his return, and remained in Ephesus, where 
he received so exceptional a hearing from the Jews that 
he promised to return to them ; but he was anxious to keep 
a coming feast (probably the Passover, possibly Pentecost) 
at Jerusalem. We are not explicitly told that he did this ; 
in fact, many critics omit entirely this reference to the feast 
at Jerusalem, in which the Revised version follows them. 
We are only informed that he went to Antioch by way of 
Caesarea, and that after a time spent there he departed on 
his third tour among the churches of Galatia and Phrygia. 

It was during this stay at Antioch, as appears probable 
from a comparison of all the texts, that the Judaizers made 
a last stand. The disturbance must have been a formidable 
one, since it led the bold Peter, who had first preached the 
114 



PAUL AT KPHESUS 



gospel to a Gentile, and had been the champion of the 
Gentile Christians twice at Jerusalem, to dissemble (Gal. 
2 : n). Barnabas also, though he had been an apostle to 
the Gentiles, was infected by the same cowardice, and like 
Peter, refused to eat with the Gentiles, "fearing them that 
were of the circumcision. ' ' This was a lamentable instance 
of defection in two men usually brave and noble-minded. 
The future of Christianity depended on God and one man, 
and they proved to be a majority. Paul withstood his 
fellow-apostle to the face because Peter stood condemned, 
in that he walked not uprightly according to the truth of the 
gospel. The great truth that man is justified by faith in 
Christ, not by the works of the law, was steadfastly and tri- 
umphantly maintained ; and never again in the history of 
the apostolic church was there a similar crisis. The Juda- 
izers continued their opposition, — later we find them making 
trouble among the Galatian churches, — but it was shorn of its 
power and they fought for a dying cause. 

Apollos. — While Paul was absent from Ephesus there 
occurred an episode that had great consequences in the 
growth of the early church. Apollos, a Jew by race and 
an Alexandrian by birth, was learned in the Jewish Script- 
ures, and eloquent. He needed only fuller light to become 
a Christian, but as yet knew only the baptism of John, which 
pre-supposed repentance and faith in a Messiah yet to come. 
Aquila and Priscilla " expounded unto him the way of G >d 
more perfectly," and he became a believer in the Messiah 
who had come. Apollos_was a great acquisition to the ranks 
of Christian teachers, for by his eloquence and knowledge 
of their Scriptures he mightily convinced the Jews. When 



Il6 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 

he was minded to pass over to Greece, the brethren at Eph- 
esus wrote commending him to the love and fellowship of 
the disciples there. In this we find precedent, if one were 
needed, for a custom so obviously fit for the dismissal by 
letter of a member of one church to another sister church. 
That this was a general custom in the apostolic age, and not 
a single instance, may be inferred from 2 Cor. 3:1. 

Paul's Second Visit. — The first incident in Paul's 
labors at Ephesus, on his second visit, was the rebaptism 
of certain disciples who had received only John's baptism. 
This is a matter that has greatly puzzled many students of 
the word, and that some difficulties are connected with the 
subject must be admitted; nevertheless the general principle 
appears plain. Christian baptism differs from the baptism 
of John in at least one essential thing : it pre-supposes a 
regenerate man, become such by faith in Jesus Christ. 
Unless this new birth does actually precede baptism, the 
ordinance becomes meaningless and void. John taught 
only repentance and belief that, a Messiah would come ; not 
all his converts can be reasonably supposed to be regener- 
ate, though in the way to become so when more fully in- 
structed in the way of the Lord. These disciples were, 
therefore, not so much rebaptized as now first really bap- 
tized. We are not explicitly told that Apollos received 
Christian baptism after his conversion ; but if he did not, we 
may conclude that it was because the Ephesian disciples 
were not yet instructed by Paul in this matter. This rebap- 
tism, and the principle on which it rests, show why Baptist 
churches cannot consistently receive without baptism those 
baptized by other denominations, unless it appears on ex- 



PAUL AT EPHKSUS 



117 



amination that the candidate had fully accepted Christ and 
believed himself to be regenerate before the baptism. 

This second visit of the apostle was protracted over two 
years and three months (compare verses 8 and 10), and is 
the longest stay in any one place of which we have record. 
His preaching, as we should infer from Luke's account, and 
as we learn from other sources, resulted in the establishment 
of a church second in numbers and influence to none of the 
churches of the apostolic age. To this period also we must 
assign the writing of two Epistles, among the most important 
of the New Testament writings, Galatians and 1 Corinthians. 
(An earlier Epistle to the church at Corinth, written by the 
apostle, has not survived.) These labors and successes stirred 
up the inevitable opposition, of which two instances are 
given, that of the Jewish exorcists and the riot incited by the 
silversmith, Demetrius. Luke's narrative of this latter 
incident is extremely lifelike, evidently the work of an eye- 
witness, and its complete accuracy has been amply con- 
firmed by the discoveries of modern archaeologists. For the 
results of these discoveries and the light they throw on the 
narrative, the student must refer to the unabriged illustrated 
editions of Conybeare and Howson' s biography of Paul, and 
to that of Lewin, which, in the profusion of this illustrative 
matter, surpass all other books. Before this bootless uproar, 
which only signified the last despairing gasp of a dying 
heathenism, the apostle had planned to depart from 
Ephesus, and the riot does not appear to have either has- 
tened or postponed his departure. 

Epistle to the Galatians. — The circumstances under 
which this letter was written clearly appear in the text. 



Il8 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 

There was a commotion in the Galatian churches like that 
at Antioch, and the Judaizers had been only too successful. 
The apostle was astonished that the Galatians had "so 
soon," in spite of his previous warnings, been turned from 
the true gospel of faith to the false gospel of works. He 
writes, therefore, to re-inculcate the principles of the gospel, 
as he had himself received it, not from men, but directly 
from Christ. This assertion of his apostolic authority leads 
him to a brief review of his own history and work. To- 
ward the close of Chapter II. he propounds the main theme 
of the letter, justification by faith and not by the works of 
the law. By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified ; 
even Abraham was saved by his faith, which God reckoned 
unto him for righteousness. By the law all are condemned, 
but Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. 
What was the office of the law then ? It was preparatory ; 
under it men were in a state of tutelage — the law was our 
" schoolmaster " {ftaidagogos, "tutor" in R. V.) to bring 
us to Christ, only through faith in whom are there justification 
and acceptance with God. The two concluding chapters are 
hortatory and practical ; the Galatians are encouraged to 
hold fast to their liberty in Christ, but not to abuse it, re- 
membering that the real fulfillment of the law is love. ' ' If 
we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk." 

First epistle to the Corinthians. — The occasion, as 
well as the object of this letter, appears in the document it- 
self. There was a fourfold division in the church at Corinth, 
parties that called themselves by the names of Paul, Apollos, 
Peter, and another that in an equally sectarian spirit affirmed 
" and I of Christ." For these divisions, Apollos and Peter 



PAUL AT EPHESUS 



119 



appear to have been no more responsible than Paul, who 
emphatically repudiates the party that affirmed him to be its 
leader. There was, besides, gross immorality in the church, 
and difficulties in regard to discipline had arisen. Apparently 
Paul had written to the church before (5 : 9), but the letter 
has not been preserved. In reply the church sent messen- 
gers (16 : 17) to the apostle, bearing a letter (7 : 1) in which 
they asked his advice regarding meats offered to idols and 
other things. The object of the letter was, therefore, to re- 
buke contentions and heal divisions ; to assert his apostolic 
authority ; to correct the immoralities in the church due to 
the corrupt influence of the surrounding society ; to answer 
the questions submitted to him ; to check the disorders in 
public worship that were bringing scandal on the faith ; to 
strengthen the faith of the weaker believers, especially in 
the realities of the unseen world and the future life ; and to 
secure their aid for the poor saints at Jerusalem. It is one 
of the most practical of the apostolic writings, and its in- 
junctions are as applicable to the Christian life of the nine- 
teenth century as they were to that of the first. It is also 
remarkable for containing two of the most inspiring passages 
in the New Testament, the noble panegyric of love in chapter 
13, and the equally eloquent discussion of the doctrine of 
the resurrection, with its impassioned climax, chapter 15. 
But even here the practical element is uppermost ; for when 
the writer has reached the loftiest utterances of triumphant 
Christian faith in the New Testament, and has asserted his 
full assurance of final victory over sin and death, it is but to 
add in the next sentence : " Wherefore, my beloved brethren, 
be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work 



120 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in 
vain in the Lord. ' ' 

LITERATURE. 
On the general subject, see Taylor, chap. 16; Stalker, chap. 9; 
Conybeare and Howson, chap. 14, 1 5. On the epistle to the Galatians 
see Bishop Lightfoot's Commentary ; also Meyer and Godet. On the 
baptism of John, in contrast with the baptism of the Holy Ghost, see 
Stifler's " introduction," sec. 15. For the stay at Ephesus, see Far- 
rar's "Life of Paul," chap. 21 ; for the first letter to the Corinthians, 
chap. 32; for the Epistle to the Galatians, chap. 35, 36. Comp. 
Lewin, vol. I., chap. 13. 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
I. Make an analysis of the Epistle to the Galatians. 2. Of I Cor- 
inthians. 3. How do we know there was a former epistle to the 
church at Corinth, and what were its contents ? 



XVIII. 



THE THIRD MISSIONARY TOUR. 

Under this title are grouped events separated by some 
interval of time, but having a common relation to the apos- 
tle's work. 

Incidents of the Tour. — The first part of this work 
consisted in the visiting of the churches in Galatia and 
Phrygia, where the apostle preached the gospel on his 
second missionary tour. We learn from the fact that there 
were in these regions churches to visit and strengthen, how 
much labor is hidden beneath the bare chronicle of Acts 
1 6 : 6 ; but beyond this we have no information regarding 
these two visits than what we may easily infer from the 
Epistle to the Galatians. 

In what may be called the second part of this tour (nar- 
rated in chap. 20), which was interrupted by the long stay 
at Ephesus, we learn that Paul abode three months in Greece 
(Achaia, as distinguished from Macedonia), probably at 
Corinth. (See Rom. 16 : 1.) Of his return journey we 
read little but a catalogue of names, except in the case of 
the stay at Troas. This is remarkable for several things, 
of which the most striking, the restoring of Eutychus to life, 
is the least important. The real importance of this narra- 
tive consists in the fact that the disciples at Troas met on 
the first day of the week, and that the service was followed 

121 



122 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



by the breaking of bread, that is, the celebration of the 
Lord's Supper. 

The Irord's Day. — This is the first case in which the 
worship of a Christian church is described in the Acts, and 
we find it meeting, not as we might have expected, on the 
Sabbath, or the seventh day of the week, but on the first 
day of the week, which not long after came to be known as 
the Lord's Day. It cannot be argued that this was an 
exceptional gathering, merely to meet and hear the apostle, 
for the phrase "when we were gathered to break bread," 
states a different purpose in coming together, and fairly 
implies a regular custom. We are not inferring too much, 
therefore, when we assume that the custom of Lord's Day 
worship was already becoming fixed in the churches, where 
the converts from Judaism were not numerically strong 
enough to control their practice, (i Cor. 16:2 shows that 
the same thing was evidently true at Corinth.) In churches 
of Jewish Christians, there can be no doubt that the Sab- 
bath was still observed, and continued to be observed for 
many years. Not until the second century do we find 
proof of the universal observance of the Lord's Day in the 
churches of Christ. We have indisputable evidence in such 
passages as Rom. 14 : 5, 6 and Col. 2 : 16 that the obliga- 
tion of keeping the Sabbath was a matter of contention 
between the Judaizers and the Gentile Christians, and that 
in this, as in other like cases, Paul threw his influence on 
the side of liberty. 

Baptists profess to take their stand in all things on the law 
of God. But there are two kinds of law in the New Testa- 
ment, as in modern society, the statute law and common 



THE THIRD MISSIONARY TOUR 123 



law. There are things that we are definitely and emphati- 
cally commanded to do or not to do ; but we find also a 
multitude of precedents and a general usage. Much of our 
Baptist polity rests on the common law of the New Testa- 
ment, not on explicit commands. The principle is this : 
the example of the apostles, where it is clear and explicit, is 
authoritative, because precedent is tantamount to command. 
If this principle is denied, then there is no authority for the 
observance of the Lord's Day in place of the Sabbath ; 
but there is also no authority for any form of church polity. 
And if the observance of the Sabbath is still binding on the 
Christian's conscience, so is the whole Mosaic law. The 
Sabbatarians of to-day are the legitimate spiritual descend- 
ants of the Judaizers of Paul's day. The Sabbath, as the 
observance of the seventh day of the week only, was a 
Jewish institution ; the Sabbath, as a day of rest, worship, 
and spiritual culture, was made for all mankind, not for the 
Jew alone, and finds its truest observance in the Christian 
institution of the Lord's Day. 

The ford's Supper. — We find at Troas the Lord's 
Supper intimately associated with the worship of the first day 
of the week. The association is apparently habitual, and 
the supper seems to have been observed every Lord's Day. 
In the church at Jerusalem, the observance seems for a time 
to have been even daily (Acts 2 : 42, 46). The fact that 
precedent is thus far from clear and decisive, leaves to every 
church some liberty in this matter; but do not churches 
transcend their liberty when they allow months to pass with- 
out a celebration of the supper ? In some Baptist churches 
the table of the Lord is spread every Lord's Day ; in the 



124 DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



majority, probably, the ordinance is celebrated once a 
month. 

At Troas, as elsewhere, baptized disciples partook of the 
Lord's Supper. The fact of their baptism is not stated in so 
many words, it is true, but it is clearly implied. The first 
act of discipleship was baptism, and that there should have 
been unbaptized disciples at Troas or anywhere else in the 
apostolic age is so contrary to all that is recorded as to be 
incredible. There is no hint, no intimation anywhere in 
the New Testament that other than baptized disciples par- 
took of this supper. In some cases (as in Acts 2 : 41, 42) it 
is definitely stated that the baptism preceded any act of 
fellowship. 

Paul at Miletus. — While here, Paul sent for the 
"elders" of the church at Ephesus, who are called 
"bishops" in verse 28, thus witnessing, as Dean Alford 
says, to ' ' the fact of elders and bishops having been origi- 
nally and apostolically synonymous." The apostle's parting 
words to these elders are not surpassed in tenderness and 
pathos by anything in the New Testament. He recalls the 
abundance of his labors in their city, the faithfulness of his 
preaching, reminds them of its disinterestedness, and ends 
by exhorting them to be constant, watchful, and self-sacrific- 
ing. This discourse is doubly memorable, as preserving to 
us a saying of our Lord' s not recorded in the Gospels, ' ' It 
is more blessed to give than to receive." 

Two Pauline IJpistles. — During the period covered by 
this lesson were written two of the most important of the 
New Testament books, 2 Corinthians and Romans. That 
the second letter to the church at Corinth was written in 



THE THIRD MISSIONARY TOUR 12 5 



Macedonia appears from 2 Cor. 2:1357:5; 8:1; 9:2, 
4 ; its date was therefore probably A. D. 58, only a few 
months later than the first letter. The letter to the church 
at Rome was written from Corinth, where it is probable that 
Paul spent the three months of Acts 20 : 3. Not many 
weeks could have separated the composition of the two 
letters. 

The first letter to the Corinthians had not produced all the 
effect that the apostle had hoped. Licentiousness and strife 
had not wholly ceased. The Judaizers were in open revolt 
against his authority, and taunted Paul's friends with the 
apostle's failure to come, as he had promised, and set the 
church in order, intimating that he was very brave at a dis- 
tance and in his letters. The apostle's object was to rebuke 
these troubles, to reassert his authority, and to renew his 
promise to visit them speedily. A space that would under 
other circumstances have been unjustifiable is, for these 
reasons, occupied with a vindication of his apostolic rank 
and authority. Though he concedes his own weakness and 
inadequacy, he does not fail to magnify his office as an 
ambassador of Christ. A large part of the letter is per- 
sonal, testifying to the warmth of the writer' s affections and 
his tender regard for this church. And he does not forget 
to urge once more upon the attention of the Corinthian 
saints the collection for their poor brethren of Jerusalem. 

The letter to the Romans was not written because of any 
special exigency in the church of that city. The apostle 
had a strong desire to preach the gospel in Rome, but not 
yet having had the opportunity, he writes them a letter in 
which he sums up his teaching. This causes the letter to 



126 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



partake more of the nature of a treatise on Christian doc- 
trine than any other book in the New Testament. The 
writer begins with the fact and doctrine of sin ; all mankind 
is in a state of sin, and therefore in need of the salvation 
offered in the gospel of Christ. The Jew has no advantage 
over the Gentile, for all have sinned. Salvation cannot be 
by the works of the law, for by the deeds of the law no 
flesh shall be justified. Justification is through faith alone, 
its ground being the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ, its 
object the reconciliation of justice and mercy, its results the 
glory of God and the confirmation of his law. Even Abra- 
ham was not justified by the law, but by faith. As the 
sequel of justification the believer has peace with God, and 
a certain hope of future glory. The apostle then proceeds 
to clear his doctrine from the imputation of leading men to 
sin. The believer cannot continue in a life of sin because 
he has become a new creature. On the other hand, so long 
as he continues under the law, he is under the power of sin ; 
the law cannot convert a sinner nor sanctify a saint. But 
the dispensation of grace accomplishes what the law could 
not do, in that it not only declares a man righteous but 
makes him righteous. Because the believer has been justi- 
fied and has peace with God, his present sufferings seem 
small, while his salvation is assured. The rejection of the 
gospel by the Jews forms the subject of a separate section of 
the letter, which closes with a practical section, in which are 
many general and special precepts for the conduct of the 
Christian life. Questions of casuistry, growing out of Jew- 
ish ideas and customs, are discussed with especial care and 
in a way to be helpful to Christians of all ages. 



THE THIRD MISSIONARY TOUR 



127 



LITERATURE. 
See, on the general subject, Conybeare and Howson, chap. 17; 
Taylor, chap. 18; Thatcher, chap. 7 (first half). On the incidents 
of the tour, consult Clark's " Harmonic Arrangement of the Acts," 
pp. 219-235; Lewin, vol. II., chap. I, 2. On the Epistle to the 
Romans, see the introductions in the commentaries of Godet, Meyer, 
and Philippi, and chap. 37-39 of Farrar's " Life of Paul." On the 
Epistles to the Corinthians, see introductions in Meyer, Godet, and 
Beet; and on 2 Cor. especially, see Farrar, chap. 33. 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
I. Was the recovery of Eutychus to life a miracle? How can 
2 Cor. 12 : 14 be reconciled with Luke's account of Paul's move- 
ments ? 3. Is there any room to question the traditional account of 
the writing of 2 Corinthians, appended to the text in the King James 
version ? 



XIX. 



PAUL AT JERUSALEM. 

The Journey to Jerusalem. — Luke' s itinerary is in this 
case more than usually minute and precise. The chief in- 
terest of the journey, however, centers in the repeated warn- 
ings addressed to Paul that he was going to Jerusalem at 
great peril. At Tyre there were disciples who said to him 
' ' through the Spirit, that he should not set foot in Jerusalem' ' ; 
that is, having been informed by the Spirit that dangers 
awaited him there, they urged that he should not go. The 
words cannot mean that it had been revealed to them as the 
will of God that Paul should not go to Jerusalem, for he 
would not have disobeyed a direct command of God. At 
Csesarea again, the same Agabus who had prophesied the 
famine in Judea (Acts n : 28), came to Paul and foretold 
that bonds and imprisonment awaited him at Jerusalem. 
The apostle did not question the truth of these warnings ; 
he rather accepted them as testimonies of the Spirit, but they 
did not shake his purpose. Why Paul should have thought 
it so necessary to go to Jerusalem ' ' to testify fully the gos- 
pel of the grace of God, ' ' we are not told. We may assume 
that he had a clear and unalterable conviction that it was his 
duty to go, and he was not a man to let danger hinder him 
when his duty was clear. 

Attacked by the Mob. — On the arrival at Jerusalem 
of Paul and his companions, the brethren received him 
128 



PAUL AT JERUSALEM 



129 



gladly. The distrust that had kept them aloof on a former 
visit had vanished in the light of the apostle's years of labor 
in Christ's service. But there was still suspicion. Though 
the church rejoiced at Paul's account of his labors, there 
were those still who reported that he taught the Jews who 
believed that they ought no longer to keep the law of Moses. 
There was this foundation for the charge : Paul did oppose 
the law when the observance of it was set forth as the 
ground of justification rather than faith in Christ ; and he 
undoubtedly taught that in Christ the law had been fulfilled, 
and the Christian was no longer under the law, but under 
grace. It would naturally follow, and it did follow, that the 
effect of this teaching would be gradually to do away with 
the observance of Mosaic rites ; but Paul was willing to let 
this come about slowly, and he did not oppose the keeping 
of the law by those who felt their consciences still bound by 
it. He therefore willingly adopted the suggestion of James 
that he accompany to the temple four men who had a Nazarite 
vow, take part with them in the ceremonies of purification, 
and bear the charges for them. This would be an object 
lesson to the Judaizers that would deprive their charges of 
all weight. 

This compliance on the part of Paul nearly cost him his 
life, and did cost him years of imprisonment and hardship — 
though it is possible, probable even, that even worse things 
might have befallen him had not this particular misfortune 
taken place. He had bitter enemies among his former co- 
religionists, who would not have suffered him to leave the 
city alive if they could kill him. While he was in the 
temple, some of these enemies, raising a mob on the false 

I 



130 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 

cry that Paul had brought Gentiles into the inner court, fell 
upon him with the design of ending his life on the spot. 
Only their scrupulosity — which did not hinder them from 
committing murder, merely from defiling the sacred precincts 
— saved him. In the outer court the mob made such an up- 
roar that the commander of the Roman cohort, stationed in 
the castle of Antonia, at the northwest angle of the temple 
area, brought a squad of soldiers and rescued Paul. During 
festivals, riots were of so frequent occurrence that the garrison 
was always ready to respond to an alarm, and this accounts 
for their promptitude and the saving of Paul's life. The 
methods of the Roman captain were as sharp and decisive 
as the justice of a border town, where they are said to hang 
a man first and try him afterward : he commanded Paul to 
be chained to two soldiers, and then he inquired who he was 
and what he had done. 

Paul at the Castle. — The violence of the mob making 
it impossible to learn anything, the chiliarch commanded 
his prisoner to be taken to the castle. When they reached 
the staircase, Paul asked permission to address the mob. 
The Roman was surprised at being addressed in Greek, for 
he suspected the prisoner of being a pretended prophet, an 
Egyptian by birth, who had led the people astray not long 
before ; but the Egyptian could not speak Greek, it would 
seem. Paul replied that he was a Jew of Tarsus, and having 
obtained permission to speak, beckoned for silence. The 
greater part of the mob, having no idea why they were there 
or what they were shouting about, became silent out of mere 
curiosity. The speech was delivered in " Hebrew," that is, 
Aramaic. It was simply the apostle's account of himself, 



PAUL AT JERUSALEM 



his former life and zeal as a Jew, his conversion and his 
appointment as an apostle of Christ. The crowd listened 
in quiet, but with growing impatience, until he spoke of 
being sent to the Gentiles — and at the utterance of that word 
all their hatred broke forth anew in shouts and imprecations. 

The chiliarch had been unable to follow this speech and 
could judge of its character only by the effect it produced. 
That convinced him that he had in his hands some desperate 
criminal, and he determined to employ the usual method in 
such cases, the torture, to extract a confession. For the 
first time Paul asserted his Roman citizenship, and the cen- 
turian who had been appointed to superintend the torture, 
reported to the chiliarch, who thereupon did what he 
should have done in the first instance — he made in- 
quiries of the prisoner. He had already committed a seri- 
ous offense in having Paul bound with thongs, like a slave, 
preparatory to the scourging. For a moment only the 
chiliarch hesitated ; he had himself bought his Roman citi- 
zenship for a great sum, and this poor Jew could hardly have 
obtained his privilege thus. But when Paul replied that he 
was born a Roman, he doubted no longer. In that case his 
citizenship must be a matter of record and easily estab- 
lished ; moreover, to make a false claim of citizenship was a 
capital offense, as we learn from Suetonius. There was 
much degeneracy in the empire at this time ; but it would 
not have been easy to find a Roman officer foolhardy 
enough to scourge a man from whose lips came the words, 
Civis Romanus sum. Paul was treated thereafter with all 
the respect due to a Roman under suspicion of crime. 

Paul before the Sanhedrin. — Still in doubt as to the 



I32 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



nature of his prisoner's offense, the chiliarch on the follow- 
ing day brought him before the Sanhedrin, that he might be 
formally accused. That body knew as little as the Roman, 
apparently, what crime to charge against him — as, in fact, 
he had committed none but the crime of being a Christian. 
Without being charged with an offense, even against Jewish 
laws, Paul spoke to the council. Hardly had he begun 
when the high priest smote him upon the mouth, in flagrant 
contravention of the Jewish law, which forbade the using of 
violence to the uncondemned. The apostle's just indigna- 
tion flamed forth in a scathing rebuke — for which he after- 
ward apologized, though with biting sarcasm : « ' I did not 
know, brethren, that he was the high priest," that is, his 
actions so far belied his office that I forgot the respect due 
him. 

Perceiving that the Sanhedrin was in no mood to judge 
his cause fairly or even to give him a hearing, Paul had re- 
course to a stratagem by which he divided his adversaries. 
The central feature of his preaching was, Christ crucified and 
raised from the dead. Therefore, he could truthfully say, as 
he did: "Brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees; 
touching the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called 
in question. ' ' This set the Pharisees and Sadducees by the 
ears at once ; and so bitter was the contention between 
them and so cordially did they hate one another, that perse- 
cution of the prisoner at the bar was forgotten in the old 
strife. Nay, some Pharisees even took the part of the 
accused and said : "We find no evil in this man, and what 
if a spirit hath spoken to him, or an angel ?" (The words, 
' ' let us not fight against God, ' ' are not found in the best 



PAUL AT JERUSALEM 



133 



Greek texts.) So great was the uproar that the chiliarch, 
fearing for the safety of his prisoner and as much in the dark 
as ever about his offense, had Paul rescued by the soldiers 
and conveyed back to the castle. 

LITERATURE. 

On the general subject, see Conybeare and Howson, chap. 22; 
Taylor, chap. 20; Thatcher, chap. 7; second half, see also Stifler's 
"Introduction," section 16; Farrar's "Life of Paul," chap. 40. 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 

1. How did Paul's father gain Roman citizenship? 2. Read 
what Josephus says (Antiq. 20, 76, and " Bell. Jud.." 2, 13, 5) about 
the Egyptian and his revolt. On the reconciliation between Josephus 
and Luke, see Hackett, p. 254. 3. What force are we to assign to 
" wash away thy sins " in 22 : 16 ? (See Hackett, p. 258.) 4. The 
history and character of this high priest, Ananias. 5. What light, if 
any, does 23 : 3 throw on Paul's affliction, the " thorn in the flesh" ? 



XX. 



PAUL AT CyESAREA. 

Paul before Felix. — -Defeated twice, the more bitter and 
unscrupulous of the apostle's enemies determined next time 
to succeed. About forty of them bound themselves by a 
horrible oath neither to eat nor drink till they had killed 
Paul. But he had already been assured in a vision that he 
would be safely guarded against such dangers, that he might 
testify to the gospel in Rome as well as in Jerusalem. Now 
a providential way of escape opened. His sister's son 
heard of the plot and disclosed it to the chiliarch, Lysias, 
who sent Paul away by night under a guard of soldiers to 
the procurator at Csesarea. With the prisoner a letter was 
sent, making no definite charge against him, and stating 
explicitly that he was not worthy of death or bonds. On 
his own showing Lysias had treated Paul unjustly and 
should have discharged him from custody ; but the Jews 
were a turbulent people, continually giving their Roman 
rulers trouble, and Lysias preferred to let his superior officer 
take the risk of offending them. 

Paul was kindly received by the procurator, Felix, but was 
detained in custody till the Jews could have opportunity to 
prefer formal charges against him. Five days later a hear- 
ing was given. The Jews appeared, and their case was 
pleaded by an orator, one Tertullus. He charged Paul with 
being a mover of insurrections among the Jews throughout 
134 



PAUL AT CESAREA 



!35 



the world, a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes, and a 
profaner of the temple. If the first of these charges meant 
that Paul incited rebellion against the Roman power, no 
proof was offered then or afterward. The other charges 
formed no offense against Roman law. In his reply, Paul 
denied the first charge, affirming that he had caused no dis- 
order at Jerusalem ; he admitted that he was a Christian, 
but that was not yet regarded as a crime under the Roman 
law ; and he challenged his accusers to prove that he had in 
any way profaned the temple. 

Felix had been procurator of Judea more than six years, 
and his wife Drusilla was a Jewess. He knew too much 
about the matters in contention to condemn the accused, and 
was in fact convinced of his innocence ; but willing to 
humor the Jews, and hoping that a bribe would be offered 
him by Paul or in his behalf, he detained the apostle with a 
promise of a further hearing. Meanwhile he summoned" 
the prisoner to private conferences ; and in one of these 
the apostle's preaching of righteousness, temperance, and 
the judgment to come found their way to this libertine's 
conscience, and he was terrified. But he did not repent and 
renounce his evil ways, he only said : ' ' Go thy way for 
this time." 

Paul Before Festus. — Thus two years passed and Por- 
cius Festus was sent from Rome as successor to Felix. It 
was common in such cases for the retiring procurator to 
" clear the docket," by discharging all uncondemned 
prisoners ; but Felix, to ingratiate himself with the Jews and 
prevent complaints at Rome against his administration, left 
Paul in prison. It is gratifying to learn that he was unsuc- 



136 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



cessful ; he was accused before the emperor by a deputation 
of Jews, and only escaped condemnation by the influence 
of his brother Pallas, a favorite of Nero. Of the two pro- 
curators, Lewin speaks thus in his biography of Paul : 
' 1 The new procurator had a straightforward honesty about 
him which forms a strong contrast to the mean rascality of 
his predecessor. He certainly did not do all the justice that 
he might have done ; but, allowing somewhat for the natural 
desire to ingratiate himself with the people of his govern- 
ment, his conduct, on the whole, was exemplary, and his 
firmness in resisting the unjust demands of the Jews cannot 
fail to elicit our admiration." He had insight enough to 
detect, and firmness enough to frustrate the new plot of the 
Jews against the life of Paul, and gave the accused apostle 
a speedy hearing. At this the Jews renewed their former 
accusations, but without proof, and Paul reiterated his asser- 
tion that he had offended against neither Roman nor Jewish 
law. Here Festus showed his weakness : lacking courage 
to offend the Jews at the very beginning of his administra- 
tion by discharging Paul, he asked the latter to go to Jeru- 
salem and there be judged — whether by Festus himself or 
by the Sanhedrin is not absolutely clear, though the reply 
would favor the latter supposition. Paul knew that return- 
ing to Jerusalem meant needless peril of his life ; and to 
submit himself to the judgment of the Sanhedrin was to 
invite death. He stood on his rights as a Roman ; it was 
his privilege to be tried by a Roman court, and he refused 
to let his accusers become his judges. As Festus had 
declined to acquit him, he appealed to Caesar, and his 
appeal was at once allowed. 



PAUL AT OESAREA 



137 



Paul Before Agrippa. — King Agrippa (son of him 
whose death is related in Acts 12 : 20-24) came to visit Fes- 
tus soon after this, and being informed about Paul expressed 
a curiosity to hear him. Festus was very willing to accede 
to this request, for, as he confessed, he had no valid charge 
to forward to the emperor with the prisoner, and he hoped 
that if the apostle were examined by Agrippa, who was 
more familiar with Jewish law, he might have somewhat to 
write. Paul's speech before Agrippa was substantially the 
same as the one he made from the staircase of the castle of 
Antonia. It is the third account of his conversion given in 
the Acts, and varies somewhat in details from the others, 
but agrees with them in every essential particular. This 
story, and the preaching of a Messiah crucified and raised 
from the dead, seemed to Festus to be nothing less than 
madness. He had doubtless heard of this man's standing 
among the Jewish doctors of the law prior to his conversion, 
and the theory seemed to him plausible that the apostle' s 
prolonged studies had affected his mind. But Paul, with 
courtesy and self-command, asserted his sanity and appealed 
to Agrippa for confirmation, assuming that the king must 
have heard of the death and resurrection of Christ, and 
knew them to be well-attested facts. The king' s reply has 
been variously understood. It seems certainly to have been 
sarcastic. "In a little time (or with a little trouble) you 
will persuade me to be a Christian." The apostle's retort 
was both dignified and severe. ' ' I would to God that, 
whether soon or late (in a little or in much time), not only 
you, but also all who hear me this day might become such 
as I am, except these chains. ' ' 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



When Festus and Agrippa conferred, after this speech, 
they agreed in pronouncing Paul innocent of any offense 
against Roman law. He seemed to them, no doubt, an en- 
thusiast, a little daft on the subject of religion, but perfectly 
harmless and certainly guiltless of any crime. He might 
have been set at liberty, as Agrippa said, if he had not ap- 
pealed to Caesar ; and these words are recorded to the ever- 
lasting shame of Festus, who had lacked the firmness to do 
what he knew justice required, even at the cost of making 
enemies. From the treatment afterward accorded Paul at 
Rome (Acts 28 : 16) we may perhaps infer that in his report 
forwarded, Festus expressed the opinion that the prisoner's 
guilt was doubtful, and recommended him to the clemency 
of Caesar. 

The apostle's behavior at Jerusalem and Caesarea, as at 
other times in his career, has an important bearing on the 
duty of Christians toward the civil power. It has been 
denied by some Baptists in the past that a Christian man 
owes any allegiance to the civil power, that he should re- 
cognize a civil court, or give testimony in one under oath. 
Paul did not refuse to plead his case before any judicial 
body before which he was brought. He claimed his rights 
as a citizen of Rome. He warns all Christians to be subject 
to the higher (civil) powers, on the express ground that f ' the 
powers that be are ordained of God." That is, civil gov- 
ernment — not any one form of it, but every form lawfully 
established and justly administered — is an ordinance of God. 
Therefore the Christian may properly avail himself of what- 
ever rights and immunities the civil law grants him, and 
should cheerfully perform whatever duties the civil law im- 



PAUL AT OESAREA 



139 



poses on him — always provided that they are not contrary 
to the higher law of God. 

LITERATURE. 

See, for general treatment of the subject, Conybeare and Howson, 
chap. 22; Taylor, chap. 22, 23. Comp. Stiffens "Introduction," 
sec. 17, 18; Farrar's "Life of Paul," chap. 41, 42; Lewin, vol. II., 
chap. 4. 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
I. The downfall of Felix (see Hackett ? s "Introduction," sec. 6 
4). 2. What was the " council " of 25 : 12, and how was it consti- 
tuted? 3. The character and history of Agrippa and Bernice. 4. 
Compare the three accounts of Paul's conversion in the Acts, arrang- 
ing them in parallel columns and noting both correspondences and 
divergencies. 5. How may the latter be explained, and what is their 
relative importance ? 



XXI. 



THE VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK. 

Paul had now been in captivity at Caesarea about two 
years. In the autumn of A. D. 60 or 61, Festus sent him 
and certain other prisoners to Rome to be tried by Caesar. 
We know from Josephus that it was not uncommon thus to 
forward prisoners for trial at Rome, even when they were 
not Roman citizens and had not appealed to Caesar. The 
journey was to be made by sea, notwithstanding the late- 
ness of the season, which made the Mediterranean unsafe. 
Aristarchus (Acts 19 : 20 ; 20 : 4 ; Philem. 24 ; Col. 4 : 10) 
accompanied Paul, as did Luke, if we may again believe the 
style of the narrative to warrant such an inference. Aristar- 
chus probably was a voluntary companion of the apostle, 
notwithstanding he is spoken of as a " fellow-prisoner ' ' in 
Col. 4 : 10, which may mean no more than that he after- 
ward voluntarily shared the apostle's imprisonment. 

From Caesarea to Crete. — The centurion to whose 
custody Paul was assigned appears to have been an officer 
of the imperial guard. He treated his prisoner, whom he 
doubtless discerned to be no ordinary man and no common 
criminal, with every courtesy. One case is especially men- 
tioned. When the ship touched at Sidon, Paul was per- 
mitted to go ashore and refresh himself among his friends — 
accompanied, of course, by the Roman soldier to whom he 
was chained. Sailing to the north of Cyprus, because of 
140 



THE VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK 141 



contrary winds, they came to Myra, in Lycia, and there 
took passage for Italy in an Alexandrian ship about to sail. 
Egypt was at this time one of the principal sources of 
Rome's corn supply, and we might have expected, even 
without reading it in Acts 27 : 38, that this ship would be 
loaded with wheat. Some of these vessels were of large 
size, comparable to the merchant ships of our own day. 
The ship in which Josephus voyaged to Rome — like Paul he 
was shipwrecked on the way — contained six hundred souls. 
The winds still continued contrary, and they were ' ' many 
days ' ' in making the distance from Myra to Cnidus, about 
one hundred and thirty miles — a distance that such a vessel, 
with a fair wind, should have made in a single day. Sailing 
to leeward of Crete, in a southerly direction, they coasted 
the south side of the island until they came to Fair Havens, 
two open roadsteads contiguous to each other, which fact 
probably explains the plural form of the name. This would 
afford a safe temporary anchorage and shelter from the 
northwest wind that had hindered them so much thus far, 
but it was not a fitting place to lay up the ship for the winter. 
The autumnal equinox was now past, as we learn from Paul's 
reference to "the fast" in ver. 9, and the period of safe 
navigation was now closed. A winter voyage was dangerous 
to the mariners of that day, less on account of the violence 
of wind and wave than because the clouds obscured the sun 
and stars, on which, in the lack of the compass, they de- 
pended for guidance. Paul warned the captain and cen- 
turion that the continuance of the voyage portended danger 
to ship, cargo, and life. It does not appear that he had any 
special revelation ; he spoke merely in the exercise of ordi- 



142 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



nary human foresight. The centurion, however, disregarded 
a landsman's warning and listened to the advice of the sea- 
faring men, which was to proceed at least to Phenice, a 
harbor on the island affording suitable shelter for the 
winter. 

The Storm and Shipwreck. — Taking advantage of 
a favorable south wind they weighed anchor and sailed 
along Crete, hugging the shore. Before they had proceeded 
far, ' ' a typhonic wind ' ' struck the vessel, called Euraquillo 
(i. e. y a nor'easter) — a common shift of the wind in those 
seas. Their only recourse was to run before it, which they 
did. When they came under the lee of the island called 
Clauda (now Gozzo), in comparatively still water, they were 
able, with much difficulty, to hoist in the boat, which in the 
mild breeze had been carelessly towed astern. They also 
undergirded the ship with ropes or chains, a common pre- 
caution in those days to help a vessel resist the force of the 
waves. Then fearing lest they be driven upon the sand- 
bank known as Syrtis Major, on the coast of Africa, south- 
west from Crete, they lowered the sail, and (as some think) 
1 ' scudded under bare poles, " as a modern sailor would say. 
Or, more likely, only the mainsail is meant, and the ship 
" lay to ' ' under one of her smaller sails. Ships of this size 
had two or three masts, and the proper handling of the ship 
under these conditions was to "lie to." This would better 
accord with the subsequent account than the supposition 
that the ship was put before the wind ; she must have foun- 
dered or struck on the African coast in a day or two if that 
had been done. She appears to have made leeway slowly, 
as a ship would when lying to under a reefed foresail. The 



THE VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK 143 



next day they lightened the ship of the freight, and on the 
third day cast out all spare tackling. If we read " we cast 
out," in verse 19, it indicates that passengers as well as 
crew joined in the labor. 

The storm continued for " many days," the heavens were 
obscured, and the navigators had no means of knowing 
where the ship was. All knew they were in extreme danger 
and were much dispirited, as well as worn out by labor and 
lack of food. Paul now stood forth and comforted them. 
He had received assurance from God that only the ship should 
be lost by being cast upon some island, and exhorted all on 
board to be of good cheer. On the fourteenth night after 
their departure from Fair Havens land was discovered, and 
the ship was anchored with four anchors cast out of the 
stern — not out of the bow, as is the modern practice. In 
the morning the sailors would have seized the boat and tried 
to escape, but Paul spoke to the centurion and the plot was 
frustrated by cutting the boats loose. The sailors were 
needed for the handling of the ship, as the subsequent 
account shows, and hence for the saving of all. By the 
apostle's advice all now partook of food, he again assuring 
them of their safety and setting the example of eating, after 
giving thanks to God. Again they lightened the ship, 
weighed anchor, and hoisting the mainsail, beached the 
vessel in what is now St. Paul's Bay, Malta. The soldiers 
would have killed the prisoners, to prevent their escape, but 
the centurion was more humane, and finally all reached the 
shore in safety. 

The Rest of the Journey. — The shipwrecked people 
were received with great kindness by the people of Malta, 



144 TH ^ DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



who treated Paul and his companions in particular with 
great honors, being much impressed by two miracles 
wrought, in the one case in his behalf, in the other by him 
in behalf of the governor's father. Here in Malta the party 
spent the winter, and when in the spring they departed, the 
people laded them with all things necessary for their com- 
fort. The second voyage, in a second Alexandrian ship, 
was uneventful. Touching at Syracuse, they landed finally 
at Puteoli, near Naples, and made the rest of the journey 
by land. At Appii Forum some of the brethren at Rome 
came out to meet Paul ; and touched by this manifestation 
of brotherly love and sympathy, he thanked God and took 
courage. 

LITERATURE. 
On the general features of the voyage, see Conybeare and Howson, 
chap. 23, 24; Taylor, chap. 24, 25. For special incidents, especially 
its nautical features, Smith's "Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul'' 
(4th edition, London, 1880) is very helpful. Many of his conclusions 
are given in Hackett's notes. Consult also Clark's notes, " Harmonic 
Arrangement of the Acts," pp. 247-263; Stifler's "Introduction," 
sec. 19; Farrar's " Life of Paul," chap. 43; Lewin, vol. II., chap. 5. 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
I. Ancient ships and methods of navigation. 2. What various ex- 
planations have been given of the standing of Julius ? 3. The itiner- 
ary of the voyage and the places named — trace all on a modern map. 
4. How was the undergirding of ancient ships done ? (See Hackett, 
p. 301). 



XXII. 



THE FIRST ROMAN IMPRISONMENT. 

A Fruitless Disputation. — On his arrival at Rome, 
Paul continued to receive tokens of favor from his custod- 
ians. He was not cast into prison, but was suffered to live 
by himself in his own hired dwelling, yet still chained to a 
Roman soldier. On the third day after his arrival he called 
together the chief men among the Jews, to whom he narrated 
the circumstances of his captivity, and the cause of his being 
at Rome. They replied, what was doubtless true, that they 
had received neither written nor oral information from Jeru- 
salem, and expressed a wish to hear further from him re- 
garding this sect (i. e. , Christians) everywhere spoken against. 
They were careful not to commit themselves, either by ad- 
mitting any knowledge of the Christians in Rome, or by 
saying anything againt ' 1 this sect ' ' on their own authority. 
Being, as they professed, in a state of complete ignorance 
concerning Paul' s case, and seeing him treated with special 
consideration, and their own state in Rome being precarious 
and uncertain, they temporized. 

A day being appointed, the Jews came to Paul's lodging, 
and he expounded to them his Messianic doctrine from the 
Scriptures "from morning till evening." As in previous 
instances, some believed but more disbelieved, and they 
departed, but not until Paul had reminded them of Isaiah's 
words concerning their hardness of heart. "Be it known 

K 145 



146 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



therefore unto you," were his concluding words, "that this 
salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles ; they will also 
hear. ' ' And these are the last words from the lips of Paul 
recorded by Luke's pen — appropriate parting words from 
him whose most highly prized title was that of apostle to the 
Gentiles. 

The Imprisonment, Trial, and Release. — We only 
learn from Luke that Paul dwelt two whole years in this way, 
quite free to receive visits from all, and "preaching the 
kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the 
Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness." This abrupt ending 
of the book of Acts can hardly have been designed by the 
writer ; he doubtless purposed a continuance of his narrative 
at some time, but was overruled by the providence of God. 
Nor is this closing sentence consistent with the theory that 
at the end of this two years Paul was condemned and put to 
death. For the remainder of his history, however, we have 
only a few hints here and there in his later writings, and 
some ancient traditions, of slight value in themselves, but 
significant when confirmed, as they are, by the written 
word. 

We learn first that when he wrote his letter to the Philip- 
pians, Paul confidently expected soon to be released. ' ' But 
I am in a strait betwixt the two, having the desire to depart 
and be with Christ ; for it is very far better : yet to abide in 
the flesh is more needful for your sake. And having this 
confidence, I know that I shall abide, yea, and abide with 
you all, for your progress and joy in the faith " (Phil. 1 : 23- 
25 ; compare 2 : 23, 24). This is quite unmistakable in its 
significance, entirely different from the tone of the second 



THK FIRST ROMAN IMPRISONMENT 147 



letter to Timothy, for example, where he looks forward to a 
speedy death. The same tone is maintained in the first 
letter to Timothy — if that was written at this time, as some 
think — who was at Ephesus, where Paul had some years 
earlier besought him to remain when he went into Mace- 
donia : " These things write I unto thee, hoping to come 
unto thee shortly ; but I tarry long, that thou mayest know 
how men ought to behave themselves in the house of God " 
(1 Tim. 3 : 14, 15). And again, r< Till I come, give attend- 
ance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine" (1 Tim. 4 : 13). 
The same hope breathes in these words to Philemon, ' 1 Pre- 
pare me also a lodging, for I hope that through your prayers 
I shall be granted unto -you. ' ' 

There is evidence, positive though slight, that this confi- 
dent expectation was realized. All the critics are agreed 
that the letter to Titus cannot have been written before the 
Roman imprisonment. But there is not only no mark in the 
epistle that the writer was in bondage, but clear proof that 
he was at liberty. To Titus he says, ' ' For this cause left I 
thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that 
were wanting, and appoint elders in every city as I gave thee 
charge" (Titus 1 : 5). And later on, "When I shall send 
Artemas unto thee, or Tychicus, give diligence to come unto 
me to Nicopolis : for there I have determined to winter ' ' 
(Titus 3 : 12). The first of these passages is not consistent 
with anything that we know of Paul' s labors from the Acts, 
and clearly points to a subsequent visit to Crete, while the 
last quoted words are not appropriate in the mouth of a 
prisoner, who might hope or expect, but could hardly ' ' de- 
termine ' ' his future acts. We may conclude, therefore, that 



148 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



Paul's expectation of release was realized ; that he executed 
his cherished project of joining Timothy at Ephesus, and 
probably wrote his letter to Titus thence. 

What we know of the state of things in Rome at this time 
is entirely consistent with this theory. Before the fire in July, 
64, there was no serious persecution of the Christians in 
Nero's reign ; and as Paul had come to Rome virtually ac- 
quitted by Festus, there is every reason to believe that at 
his formal hearing before Caesar he was promptly declared 
innocent, and set free. 

This conclusion is made a moral certainty by Paul's words 
in his second letter to Timothy : ' ' At my first defense no one 
took my part, but all forsook me : may it not be laid to their 
account. But the Lord stood by me, and strengthened me ; 
that through me the message might be fully proclaimed, and 
that all the Gentiles might hear : and I was delivered out of 
the mouth of the lion" (2 Tim. 4 : 16, 17). This says, in 
almost so many words, that the apostle was released and 
spent yet other years in the preaching of the gospel to the 
Gentiles. 

To this first Roman imprisonment is assigned, by the 
general consent ' of scholars, the writing of the Epistles to 
Philemon, to the Colossians, the Ephesians, the Philippians, 
and possibly, also, the first letter to Timothy, though this 
last was more probably written after his release. The order 
in which these letters were composed is conjectural, but the 
one given above is confirmed by many things in the docu- 
ments themselves. 

Philemon. — The one to whom this letter was addressed 
was a man of substance in Colosse, converted under Paul's 



THE FIRST ROMAN IMPRISONMENT 1 49 



labors (ver. 19) ; and the occasion of its writing was to com- 
mend to him, as a brother in Christ, one Onesimus, a slave 
of Philemon, who had wronged his master and fled to Rome 
to escape the consequences. Having been converted, he 
decided to return to his master and make atonement for his 
sins, but was naturally doubtful as to his reception. Paul 
does not interfere with the institution of slavery directly, but 
the doctrine of Christian brotherhood that he lays down in 
this Epistle was incompatible with the ownership of one man 
by another ; and accordingly, where Christianity has pre- 
vailed slavery has vanished. Christianity means the Father- 
hood of God and the brotherhood of man, and when this 
is conceded the civil law cannot long deny equal rights 
to all men. 

May we not, from this apostolic method, learn something 
regarding the duty of Christian teachers and preachers to- 
day ? The silences of Scripture are significant — what is not 
said often means quite as much as what is said. The society 
of the Roman Empire was organized on a basis essentially 
immoral, and the State was organized on a basis essentially 
unjust. The imperial power denied to the people political 
rights that we now consider inalienable ; and the Roman law 
denied to more than half the population the right to personal 
liberty. But neither Christ nor his apostles preached a po- 
litical and social revolution. That is to say, they did not 
preach revolution in terms ; they did preach revolution in 
fact. The doctrines of the New Testament are revolutionary 
in any society or in any State not organized on the basis of 
eternal righteousness. They are a leaven that must inevitably 
work out social and political regeneration by gradual and 



150 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 

peaceful means. Such was their effect on the Roman Em- 
pire and on Roman society. The social and political regen- 
eration that many Christian men desire in our own day is to 
be sought by a similar method — not by violent proclamation 
of the duty of revolution, but by the faithful inculcation of 
the principles of the pure gospel of Christ. If there is wrong 
in State or society to-day, this is the divinely appointed way 
of righting it ; but they that take the sword shall perish by 
the sword. 

Colossians. — The church at Colosse was not founded by 
Paul, nor even visited by him, as we may safely infer from 
his letter, though he knew some of its members. He may 
well have learned of its state from Onesimus, since the house 
of Philemon was one of the church's meeting places. Tak- 
ing advantage of the return of Onesimus, he sends a letter 
warning the saints at Colosse against the dangers of certain 
false doctrines. These, as the allusions plainly show, were 
a combination of Judaic and Gnostic teachings. The Gnostic 
doctrine of creation is distinctly opposed in 1 : 16, 17, and 
the favorite doctrine of emanations is as clearly condemned 
in 2 : 18, 19. Against these useless speculations the writer 
urges the duty of heavenly mindedness in Christ, and ex- 
horts the saints to let the proof of their spirituality be mani- 
fest in godly lives. 

IJphesians. — It has been said that the only certain thing 
about this letter is that it was not addressed to the church at 
Ephesus, at least not specifically. No church is mentioned 
in it, and the tradition which attaches the Ephesian church's 
name to it is late and untrustworthy. It may well have been 
that letter to the church at Laodicea mentioned in Col. 4:16, 



THE FIRST ROMAN IMPRISONMENT 151 

and it may have been given this impersonal form to adapt it 
to be read in other churches — in short, it has all the appear- 
ance of a circular or " catholic " epistle, designed for no one 
church in particular. There is a marked resemblance be- 
tween this letter and that to the Colossians, but the thought 
is loftier and the style finer. It is a strongly doctrinal letter, 
and lays special stress on God's purpose in redemption and 
the fact that Christ is the central figure in this redemption. 
The debt of both Jew and Gentile, but especially of the latter, 
to the grace of God is emphasized, and this naturally sug- 
gests the communion of saints, the true unity of believers in 
Christ. The closing chapters are occupied with practical 
exhortations, especially with a plea for faithfulness, stead- 
fastness. One word is especially characteristic of this epistle : 
it is " stand." 

Philippians. — " Rejoice ' ' may be regarded as character- 
istic of this letter, since it occurs so frequently that the most 
casual reader cannot fail to be struck by it. There is less of 
method, of orderly sequence of thought, of definite divisions, 
in this than in Paul's other letters. It is more purely epis- 
tolary in style, and for this reason has a special attractive- 
ness to the reader. It contains only one doctrinal passage, 
but that is one of the noblest in the New Testament, and 
goes deeper into the person and work of Christ than any 
other (2 : 5—1 1). " Surely," says Professor Wm. Arnold 
Stevens, ' ' the great apostle to the Gentiles could have 
closed this marvelous series of inspired letters to the churches 
he had founded with nothing more beautiful and appropriate 
than this loving and tender epistle, which expresses so ar- 
dently his perfect joy and gratitude over the remarkable 



1^2 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



fellowship of this beloved church, exhibits so gloriously his 
calm and heroic spirit of resignation and triumph in view 
of a possible martyrdom, and accepts so delicately and 
graciously the material gifts of his brethren, even as a noble 
king might receive the offerings of devoted subjects." 

LITERATURE. 
On the imprisonment, see Conybeare and Howson, chap. 25, 26; 
Taylor, chap. 26, 27. Comp. Stifler's " Introduction," sec. 20; Far- 
rar's " Life of Paul," chap. 44, 45 ; Lewin, vol. II., chap. 6. On 
the epistles named, see the introduction to each in the " American 
Commentary on the New Testament,' ' in Meyer's Commentaries, and 
the like ; and especially consult Bishop Lightfoot's Monograph ; and 
compare Farrar's " Life of Paul," chap. 46-52. 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
1. Why was Paul's trial so long delayed? 2. Study the epistles 
written during this imprisonment, and let each test for himself the 
statements and conclusions of the foregoing text. 



PART IV 
ESTABLISHING THE CHURCHES 



A. D. 63-IOO 



XXIII. 



paul's closing years. 

The common tradition in the post-apostolic church is thus 
stated by Eusebius : " After defending himself successfully, 
it is currently reported that the apostle again went forth to 
proclaim the gospel, and afterward came to Rome a second 
time, and was martyred under Nero. ' ' How long was the 
interval between the two imprisonments, and where the 
apostle labored, we can only conjecture with a good degree 
of plausibility, though in some of the details we may be 
morally certain that we are correct. 

The Journey to Spain. — We know from Paul's own 
words, that, had he not been sent to Rome as a captive, it 
was a cherished purpose of his to visit .the church of that 
place in the course of a missionary tour as far westward as 
Spain (Rom. 15 : 22-24). Tradition asserts that such a 
tour was actually made. Indeed, the testimony of Clemens, 
the disciple and companion of Paul, can hardly be called 
tradition, but should be accepted as fact ; and he tells us 
that Paul, before his martyrdom, traveled ' ' to the boundary 
of the West." Other ancient writers speak of a journey to 
Spain, and even to Britain, as well-known facts in the his- 
tory of the apostle. The Church of England has long pro- 
fessed to owe its origin to the labors of Paul, and has some 
slight historical justification of the boast. No incidents of 

155 



156 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



this journey are preserved, even by tradition, nor is its chro- 
nological connection with the other labors of the apostle in 
his late years at all clear. 

His labors in the Uast. — Before or after this journey, 
as one chooses to place it, come a series of tours and apos- 
tolic labors nearer the scenes of Paul' s three great missionary 
circuits recorded by Luke. The work in Crete referred to in 
the letter to Titus, and that journey in Macedonia men- 
tioned in the first letter to Timothy, find their natural place 
here. It is difficult, not to say impossible, to fit them into 
the history of Paul as given in the Acts and his earlier epis- 
tles. The style of the so-called ' ' pastoral epistles ' ' differs 
considerably from Paul' s other writings, and points toward a 
considerably later composition ; and though the argument 
from style may be pushed to absurd lengths, it is by no 
means without weight. There are also visits to Troas and 
Miletus (2 Tim. 4:13, 20) that can hardly be placed any- 
where in the apostle's life but here. We may confidently 
assign a period of not less than three years to these jour- 
neys and labors. 

The Second Imprisonment and Death. — If the Epistle 
to Titus is evidently the composition of a free and hopeful 
man, the second letter to Timothy is as evidently the writing 
of a captive who sees himself about to be released by death. 
W e have no means of knowing how Paul was brought before 
Nero the second time, but in A. D. 67, to be a Christian was 
a capital offense in itself, and the cruel Nero was bitterly 
persecuting the Christians in the hope of diverting attention 
from his own crimes. During this last captivity, which was 
evidently more rigorous than the first, Onesiphorus sought 



PAUL'S CLOSING YEARS 



1 57 



out Paul very diligently and refreshed him (2 Tim. 1:16, 
17), and toward the last he writes " only Luke is with me," 
and exhorts Timothy, "Do thy diligence to come before 
winter" (2 Tim. 4 : 11, 21). Paul is ready to be offered, 
and knows that the time of his departure is at hand. 

Ancient tradition is more than usually explicit regarding 
the apostle's death, and seems very likely to be more than 
usually correct — placing it in the year 68, the last of 
Nero's hateful reign. His Roman citizenship exempted him 
from an ignominious death, and entitled him to be beheaded 
by the axe of the lictor. Many writers concur in saying that 
the place of execution was a little outside of the city walls, 
on the Ostian road, very near the spot where Constantine 
erected the great basilica of St. Paul. "The blow of the 
axe, ' ' Stalker says, 1 1 only smote off the lock of the prison and 
let the spirit go forth to its home and to its crown. The city, 
falsely called eternal, dismissed him with execration from 
her gates ; but ten thousand times ten thousand welcomed 
him in the same hour at the gates of the city which is really 
eternal." 

The Pastoral Epistles. — The external testimony to 
these epistles is complete, and they bear within themselves 
convincing marks of genuineness. They contain the com- 
pletest instructions in the New Testament regarding the 
nature and proper administration of the pastor's office. 

The first letter to Timothy was plainly addressed to him 
while he was at Ephesus filling the office of bishop according 
to Paul's previous directions. The tradition that Timothy 
was the first bishop of Ephesus is, therefore, not so much 
tradition as history. The letter opens with a warning 



158 THE) DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



against heresies — some of which are described in detail — and 
an exhortation to be faithful to the gospel. The second 
chapteris devoted to practical directions regarding the con- 
duct of the church, especially the behaviour of men and 
women in the meetings. Chapter three is given to the 
qualifications of bishops and deacons, which are minutely 
set forth. The writer then returns to the heretics and their 
doctrines, some of which he confutes. The rest of the letter 
is filled with personal advice and exhortation to Timothy, 
his relations to other elders being one of the chief matters 
treated. The writer's personal affection for Timothy, as 
well as his official concern that the younger man may con- 
tinue to be zealous and faithful, may be read in every line. 

The letter to Titus was written during Paul' s last mission- 
ary travels, perhaps from Ephesus. These travels had in- 
cluded a visit to Crete, and Titus had been left here to ordain 
elders in the churches. These facts, gathered from the let- 
ter itself, explain its contents. The letter is personal, direct, 
familiar, full of practical hints and earnest exhortation. It 
gives substantially the same advice regarding the qualifica- 
tions of elders that was previously given to Timothy. Prac- 
tical advice regarding the conduct of Christians is also given, 
the duty of being orderly and obedient toward their rulers 
being especially enforced. 

The second letter to Timothy evidently proceeds from a 
Roman dungeon, whence the apostle expected to be taken 
only to be condemned and executed. It begins and ends 
with an earnest assurance of the apostle's desire to see 
speedily his son in the faith. Timothy is exhorted to the 
fearless exercise of his ministerial gift ; to hold fast to 



PAUL'S CLOSING YEARS 



r 59 



the doctrine he had received ; to endure hardness for 
the gospel. Directions follow regarding his spirit and 
conduct as a Christian teacher, especially in dealing with 
teachers of heresy. Apostasy and unfaithfulness are to be 
expected, but Timothy is exhorted to remain faithful and 
carry on the work that the apostle was about to lay down. 
The writer concludes with special commissions and greetings 
and a benediction. This letter has a peculiar and pathetic in- 
terest as the last words of the Apostle Paul. 

LITERATURE. 
On these closing years, see Conybeare and Howson, chap. 27 ; 
Taylor, chap. 28; Stalker, chap. 10; Lewin, Vol. II., chap. 7-10; 
Neander, " Planting and Training of the Christian Church," book 
III., chap. 10; Farrar's " Life of Paul," chap. 55. On the Pastoral 
Epistles see Fairbairn's treatise and the commentaries of Ellicott and 
Meyer; also Farrar's " Paul," chaps. 53, 54, 56. Farrar's Excursus 
VIII. on the " Evidences of the Liberation of Paul," is valuable. On 
Paul's later writings consult, in addition to authorities already named, 
Findlay's " Epistles of Paul the Apostle.' ' 

HINTS FOR ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION. 
I. When was the "first defense" referred to in 2 Tim. 4 : 16? 
2. Read carefully the pastoral epistles in the Revised version and 
note their difference from, as well as resemblance to, Paul's other 
writings. 3. Make a note of all other New Testament passages like 
2 Tim. 3:16, and deduce from them the biblical doctrine of the in- 
spiration of Scripture. 



XXIV. 



Paul's companions. 

More than half of our lessons thus far have been given to 
the work of the Apostle Paul. In this we have only followed 
the example of the author of the Acts of the Apostles. No 
doubt Luke was most familiar with Paul's labors, but no 
doubt also he was directed by the Holy Spirit to give them 
this prominence because they had the decisive influence in 
the development of the Christian church and of Christian 
doctrine. We are not to think, however, that the labors of 
others were of slight importance, because fewer details 
about them are recorded in the New Testament, and par- 
ticularly in the Acts. It will be the aim of the remaining 
lessons to outline the work of others than Paul, and this 
can be best done by grouping the facts about certain repre- 
sentative men, beginning with those closely associated with 
Paul. 

Barnabas. — The name of Barnabas first suggests itself. 
Of his early life we know almost nothing. He was a native 
of Cyprus, a Levite (Acts 4 : 37), and his name was origi- 
nally Joseph. How and when he came to believe in Jesus as 
the Messiah we have no hint — tradition makes him one of 
the Seventy. We first learn of his discipleship after Pentecost, 
when he showed the genuineness of his love for Christ and the 
brethren by selling a field that he possessed and laying the 

price at the apostles' feet. This sacrifice would naturally gain 
160 



PAUL'S COMPANIONS 



161 



for him the confidence and love of the Jerusalem church, 
and he soon showed himself fitted for leadership. That he 
was eloquent we may gather from the surname soon given 
him, for Barnabas signifies "son of consolation," or "ex- 
hortation." He "was a good man, and full of the Holy 
Ghost and of faith." Barnabas was a man of noble heart, 
generous, loyal to friends and kindred. He showed this 
character in his reception of Paul, when all other Christians 
stood aloof from him. He showed it in his insistence upon 
the companionship of Mark. We do not know the circum- 
stances sufficiently to apportion the blame for that ' ' sharp 
contention," but if the fault were wholly his, it was evi- 
dently a fault that leaned to virtue' s side. The services of 
Barnabas up to that time had been as great to the cause of 
Christ as those of Paul, and though we hear of him but 
once more we cannot doubt that he continued to be a 
preacher of Christ to the end of his life. The last mention 
of Barnabas indicates a weakness in his character. He 
gave way to the Judaizers and dissembled his real views 
for the sake of peace (Gal. 2:11). Warm-hearted and 
generous, he lacked decision of character in this crisis. As 
we have seen, for some time he was a more influential man 
than Paul among the churches, and of all those associated 
with Paul in evangelistic work his name must be ranked 
first. The epistle bearing his name is spurious, having 
been composed in the second century, according to the pres- 
ent consensus of scholarship. 

Mark. — We know of Mark only that he was the son of a 
certain Mary of Jerusalem (Acts 12 : 12), and the cousin 
or nephew of Barnabas (Col. 4 : 10). His name was John, 

L 



1 62 THK DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



to which the Roman surname of Marcus was later added, 
superseding the former. It has been plausibly conjec- 
tured that he was the "young man" of Mark 14 : 51 — at 
that time probably already a convert. His connection with 
Barnabas caused him to be selected as companion and assist- 
ant on the first missionary tour. His desertion of the apos- 
tles and the results of that hasty and ill-considered act have 
already been fully discussed. By subsequent faithfulness 
he fully atoned for his error, as we may infer from Paul's 
references to him (Col. 4 : 70 ; Philem. 24). Later we know 
that he was with Peter at Babylon (1 Peter 5 113), and it 
was perhaps on his way to join Peter that he made the visit 
to Asia Minor referred in Col. 4 : 10. Either before or 
after this, he was with Timothy at Ephesus when Paul wrote 
the second letter to Timothy, and the apostle was anxious 
for his speedy return to Rome (2 Tim. 4 : 11). According 
to tradition Mark received from Peter the greater part of the 
facts he recorded in his Gospel, which is of special interest 
as being probably the earliest of our four Gospels, and as 
having furnished both Luke and Matthew with a considerable 
part of their materials. The direct, fresh, often picturesque 
style of Mark confirms the tradition that he received assist- 
ance from Peter in composing it. The date of this Gospel 
may be approximately fixed at A. D. 62. 

Timothy. — Timothy was the son of a Greek and a Jewess. 
The father's name we do not know, and he probably died 
while the child was still young. The mother Eunice, and 
the grandmother Lois, were devout, and taught him from a 
child to know the Scriptures. We have already seen that 
the conversion of Timothy and his mother, who received 



PAUL'S COMPANIONS 



the word with "unfeigned faith" (2 Tim. 1 : 5), compen- 
sated Paul for his sufferings at Lystra. The churches of 
Derbe and Lystra bore witness to Timothy's character a few 
years later, and Paul chose him as a special helper in his 
missionary work. It was very likely at this time that the 
hands of the presbytery were laid on him, and he was 
ordained an elder or bishop (1 Tim. 4 : 14). On account 
of his semi-Israelitish birth, he also received the seal of a 
child of the covenant, that there might be no cause for 
scandal in his future labors. His work with Paul during 
the second missionary tour seems to have been constant and 
very efficient. He was frequently employed to bear mes- 
sages to churches that Paul could not visit. During Paul's 
two years' imprisonment at Caesarea he was probably at Eph- 
esus, and he does not appear to have journeyed with Paul to 
Rome, though he joined the apostle there and comforted him 
during the imprisonment. After the apostle' s release Timo- 
thy went again to Ephesus, and our knowledge of him then 
ceases, except for the reference to him in Heb. 13 : 23, from 
which we learn that he was at one time — probably after the 
death of Paul, for we cannot fit any imprisonment into the 
facts known about Timothy up to that time — a prisoner fori 
the gospel's sake, but was acquitted. Of all his compan- 
ions Paul seems to have cherished the greatest personal 
affection toward Timothy. This testifies to his amiable 
qualities as strongly as the frequent mentions of him testify 
to his piety and faithful service of his Master. 

Apollos. — We have already learned all that is to be 
certainly known of Apollos. A Jew, born at Alexandria, 
eloquent, thoroughly versed in the Old Testament, he came 



164 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



to Ephesus about a. d. 54, and there learned the truth more 
fully from Aquila and Priscilla. Then followed his labors 
in Achaia, especially at Corinth. We know from 1 Cor. 
16 : 12 that he returned to Ephesus, and that he was highly 
esteemed by Paul ; so we cannot regard him as responsible 
for the folly of those in Corinth who called themselves his 
followers. The last mention of Apollos (Titus 3:13) indi- 
cates that he never lost the esteem of Paul, but of his subse- 
quent labors we know nothing certainly. 

Special interest, however, attaches to the little we hear 
of Apollos, because he is believed by many to be the author 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews. That epistle is anonymous, 
while all of Paul's Epistles definitely state their authorship. 
Moreover, 2 : 3 utterly excludes Paul from the list of possi- 
ble authors, since the writer classes himself among those 
who received the gospel at second hand, while Paul always 
asserted a direct revelation of the truth to him by Christ 
(Gal. 1 : 1, 1 1, 12, 15, 16 ; 2 : 6 ; 1 Cor. 11 : 23). The style 
is so different from that of the other Pauline Epistles, that 
only positive evidence could convince one that Paul wrote 
the epistle. On the other hand, the doctrine is distinctly 
Pauline, but with such differences as we should expect from 
a disciple of strong personality. And, as we saw in treating 
of Timothy, the passage mentioning the latter s imprison- 
ment, points to a time of composition after Paul's death. 
We may learn from the epistle itself that its author was 
certainly a Jew, probably an Alexandrine Jew, for the 
teaching shows traces of Philo's philosophy. He was a 
trained rhetorician, not residing in Italy at the time, and 
at liberty. He was an intimate friend of Timothy. He 



PAUL'S COMPANIONS 1 65 

addresses his letter to Judaeo-Christians, among whom Paul 
did not labor during his later years, but with whom Apollos 
had wonderful success. All of these indications point to 
Apollos. On the other hand, many of them are equally 
consistent with the tradition that Barnabas wrote the epistle, 
which is found first in Tertullian's writings. If, however, 
those critics are right who find in 9 : 1-5 errors of detail 
regarding the arrangement of the temple — the writer describ- 
ing rather the tabernacle and supposing the temple to be 
exactly similar — Barnabas would be excluded from possible 
authorship, for as a Levite he must have been practi- 
cally familiar with these things. The deviations from ab- 
solute accuracy in no way affect the argument, if they are 
admitted to exist ; they are of no more importance than 
verbal deviations in a quotation, the sense of which is pre- 
served ; but they are such as Barnabas could not be sup- 
posed to make, while they are precisely such as Apollos, 
who had never beheld the holy place, might reasonably be 
expected to make. For the details see any good commen- 
tary on this passage. The judgment of critics more and 
more inclines to the belief that Luther' s happy guess regard- 
ing the authorship of this epistle was correct. 

LITERATURE. 
Comparatively little is available. See Howson's " Companions of 
St. Paul,' ' especially those named in the lesson ; also articles on these 
names in Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible," the " Schaff-Herzog 
Encyclopaedia," and similar books of reference. 



XXV 



JOHN, THE BELOVED. 

John was, in all probability, a native of Galilee ; for his 
home, when we first read of him, was on the shore of Gen- 
nesaret, apparently of Bethsaida (comp. Luke 5 : 9 and John 
1 : 44). Of his parents we know little more than the names ; 
the father was Zebedee, and the mother Salome. By some 
the mother is identified with the sister of Mary, the mother 
of Jesus (John 19 : 25 ; comp. Matt. 27 : 56, and Mark 15 : 
40), which would make John the cousin of our Lord. This 
might account in part, though only in part, for the special 
affection that existed between them. Zebedee was engaged 
in fishery, and was a man of some wealth, employing ser- 
vants (Mark 1 : 19, 20). Later, the father perhaps being 
dead, Salome is mentioned as a woman of " substance" 
(Luke 8:3; Matt. 27 : 55), and John had a house of his own 
(John 19 : 27). The apostle's acquaintance with the high 
priest — if John was the " other disciple," as is generally ad- 
mitted — also points to a degree of social importance and 
even of culture, not usually associated with the "poor, ig- 
norant fishermen of Galilee," as it is common to describe 
the apostles of Jesus. The life of John, as known to us, 
naturally falls into two periods, with the death of Jesus as 
the dividing line. 

First Period.— We may infer in the case of John a care- 
ful education, such as the sons of the best Jewish families 
166 



JOHN, THE BELOVED 



167 



then received. This would develop in a naturally ardent 
soul a zealous attachment to the Jewish faith, and a belief 
in the coming Messiah. The proclamation of the Baptist's 
message found a ready acceptance in such hearts, and John, 
together with his brother James — conjectured to be the elder 
of the two, from his name being so generally given first — 
became disciples of the wilderness teacher. On the day 
following the baptism of Jesus, hearing the Baptist's testi- 
mony that this was the Lamb of God, John and Andrew 
followed him, and abode with him that day — I assume here, 
and everywhere, that the unnamed disciple is always John. 
John must have been among the disciples who attended their 
master to the marriage feast at Cana, and witnessed his first 
miracle. It is not difficult to understand how this manifesta- 
tion of Divine power, joined to their previous impressions 
gained from association with Jesus, confirmed their faith in 
him and his mission. After a journey with their master to 
Jerusalem, to attend the Passover, and the return through 
Samaria, the disciples seem for a short time to have returned 
to their homes and former vocations. The circumstances 
of the final call to the discipleship are narrated in Matt. 4 : 
18 and the parallel passages. Still later came the formal 
selection of the twelve from the larger body of the disciples 
(Luke 6 : 12 ; Mark 3 : 13). By a process of spiritual se- 
lection, four of these twelve were gradually promoted to a 
special intimacy with their Lord : John and his brother James, 
Simon and his brother Andrew. But even among these, John 
enjoyed the special distinction of being "the disciple whom 
Jesus loved." These four are always named before the 
others in lists of the apostles. Peter, James, and John were 



1 68 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



chosen by Jesus to accompany him to the chamber of the 
dead daughter of Jairus (Mark 5 : 37), to witness his trans- 
figuration (Mark 17 : 1), and to share with him the agony 
of Gethsemane (Matt. 26 : 37). If Peter is in a certain 
sense the leader, John is not far behind. He alone of the 
twelve, so far as appears, was with his master in his dying 
hour, and to his care Jesus committed his mother (John 19 ; 
26, 27)— a trust that was doubtless faithfully executed. 

Second Period. — Peter and John were the first of the 
disciples to visit the tomb of Jesus. John, the younger and 
more vigorous, outran Peter when they heard from Mary 
Magdalene that the body was gone, but it was Peter who 
first entered the tomb— two very characteristic incidents 
(John 20 : 4-6). The same difference is seen on the ap- 
pearance of Jesus to them on the sea of Galilee (John 21 : 1) ; 
John first sees and recognizes him, but it is Peter who plunges 
into the water to go to him. After the ascension of our Lord, 
we find Peter and John leading the work of the church. It 
was through them that the first apostolic miracle was wrought, 
and though Peter was the spokesman, it was John's faith 
equally with his own that made possible the healing of the 
lame man (Acts 3 : 3, 4). With Peter he is sent to the 
brethren in Samaria, and welcomes them as believers in 
the Lord Jesus, thus taking his part in the first great ex- 
pansion of the church. In the persecution under Herod 
Agrippa his brother James was put to death, and doubtless 
he was forced to seek safety in flight, but he returned and 
was one of the leading figures in the council of Jerusalem, 
being then and always regarded as one of the ' ' pillars ' ' of 
the church (Gal. 2:9). From this time on, the only trace 



JOHN, THE BELOVED 



169 



we have of the apostle, except in his writings, is in vague 
traditions. That he spent some time on the isle of Patmos 
he tells us himself (Rev. 1 : 9) ; that he dwelt a long time in 
Ephesus is probable ; and that he outlived all the other 
apostles, accords well with internal evidence from his writ- 
ings. Tradition fixes his death nearly at the close of the 
first century. 

His Character. — None^f the apostles have been more 
misunderstood than John. He is popularly known as "the 
apostle of love " — an appropriate enough name, considering 
the prominence of this idea of love in his later writings, but 
unfortunate in the conclusions it has suggested. If we knew 
John only from his Gospel and Epistles, composed in his old 
age, when experience had mellowed and ripened him, we 
might infer that his character in its softness was more 
womanly than masculine. Painters commonly picture him 
as slight and beautiful to the verge of effeminacy. Nothing 
could be farther from the truth. In fiery impetuosity John 
was inferior only to Peter among the twelve, during their 
early discipleship at least. It was because of vehemence 
and intensity of character that James and John were sur- 
named Boanerges, Sons of Thunder. It was they who re- 
buked one who cast out devils in their Lord' s name because 
he walked not with them ; who wished to call down fire from 
heaven on the inhospitable Samaritans ; who boasted them- 
selves able to drink of their Master' s cup, and aspired to sit 
one on his right hand and the other on his left in his king- 
dom. Pride, ambition, revenge — the sins of strong and 
ardent natures — are the traits that we find disclosed by these 
incidents. They mark masculine strength, not feminine 



170 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 

delicacy. It is true that the grace of God gave John the 
ultimate mastery of these tendencies toward evil, but he 
became the apostle of love, not because he was feebly 
amiable by nature, but because through long years of con- 
flict he gained the victory over self. Love is not weakness, 
but strength. In the kingdom of grace, as well as in the 
kingdom of this world, it is true that 

The bravest are the tenderest, 
The loving are the daring. 

His Writings. — The view taken of John's character 
above is confirmed by his writings, and, in turn, explains 
their peculiarities. The Revelation was written while he 
was still comparatively a young man, before the fires of his 
youthful character had been completely subdued. It is 
more impetuous in movement, bolder in imagery, more 
rugged in style, than his later writings. We may place the 
date at not later than 70 A. D. On the other hand, the 
Epistles and Gospel are markedly similar in tone, and belong 
to his later years, as we might conjecture if we had nothing 
but internal evidence to guide us. We may assign the 
Epistles to a date not earlier than 90 A. D., and the Gospel 
to one not later than 100 A. D. 

LITERATURE. 
Excellent articles may be found on John's life and writings pre- 
fixed to Hovey's, Meyer's, and Godet's Commentaries on John; in 
Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible," and the " Schaff-Kerzog Ency- 
clopaedia" ; and there is a good monograph, modeled on Conybeare 
and Howson's biography of Paul : Dr. Macdonald's " Life and Writ- 
ings of St. John. See also Neander, " Planting and Training," 
book V. 



XXVI. 



PETER THE ROCK. 

His IJarly I/ife. — Simon or Symeon (Acts 15 : 14) was 
a native of Bethsaida, the son of one Jonas (Matt. 16 : 17) 
or John (John 1 ; 42). His father was a fisherman, proba- 
bly a man of some means, as his family and that of Zebedee 
were partners in the fisheries, owned boats and hired assist- 
ants. The statement in Acts 4:13 that Peter and John 
' ' were unlearned and ignorant men ' ' is true only from the 
standpoint of members of the Sanhedrin. These words 
mean simply that they were not trained in the schools of the 
rabbis, not that they were illiterate. To a Gamaliel, a 
Plato or a Cicero would have been " unlearned and ig- 
norant. ' ' We may be sure that Simon had been taught to 
read, that he had some knowledge of Greek, and that he was 
familiar with the Old Testament Scriptures. At the open- 
ing of the gospel history he was married, and the house in 
which he then lived at Capernaum was large enough for 
him to entertain Jesus and a number of his disciples, after 
his mother-in-law had been healed of a fever. Simon and 
his brother Andrew had been among the disciples of John 
the Baptist, and they were preceded only by the sons of 
Zebedee in attaching themselves to Jesus. Their first call 
was one of discipleship simply, and after spending some 
weeks in his company and attending the Passover with him, 
they returned for a time to their business. The final call of 

i 7 i 



172 



THK DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



Andrew and Peter is told in Matt. 4 : 18 seq., and then they 
left all and followed their Mas.er. 

Until the Resurrection. — The record of Simon's life 
from this time on is inseparable from that of Jesus. So far 
as appears from the Gospels, he was not parted from his 
Master for a day, after his final call to service. He had been 
named by our Lord, Cephas — a stone or rock, Petros being 
the corresponding Greek word — and he well deserved the 
title, in spite of his amazing conduct at times. Very early 
he attained a recognized primacy among the twelve — not a 
primacy of office, for he never claimed any official superi- 
ority nor was any such superiority conceded to him ; but a 
primacy of character, of leadership. Peter had the qualities 
that everywhere bring men to the front. He was bold to the 
verge — and often beyond the verge— of rashness, self-con- 
fident, impulsive, not afraid of responsibility, ready of 
speech. There was more of rugged strength than of polish 
and tact in his character, but he was also a man in whom 
the affections were as warm> as the spirit was ardent, and the 
will unbending. He showed none of the obstinacy that 
weak men imagine to be strength. He was at times open to 
the charge of fickleness and cowardice. Strong men are 
sometimes susceptible to sudden fits of irresolution ; brave 
men will sometimes yield to momentary panic. It is no in- 
explicable thing that Peter boasts his readiness to die for his 
Lord, vows that though all become faithless he will remain 
faithful, and so far makes good his words as to draw his 
sword and attack the nearest man in the crowd who had 
come to arrest Jesus, and then suddenly takes to his heels 
and ingloriously runs away ; follows his Master afar off, and 



PETER THE ROCK 



173 



finally denies him thrice in quick succession. This episode, 
shameful as it is, cannot wipe out the record of his former 
faithfulness and his later devotion. 

It was Peter who first confessed Jesus as the Christ of 
God ; upon Peter, not in any exclusive sense but as the 
leader and representative of the apostles, Jesus said that he 
would build his church ; to Peter, in the same representative 
capacity, he gave the keys of the kingdom of heaven 
(Matt. 16 : 17-19 ; comp. 18 : 18). And yet it was this same 
Peter whom Jesus called Satan (the adversary) when he 
would hinder the accomplishment of God's purposes. It 
was the impulsive, brave Peter who walked upon the water 
to meet his Lord, and it was a sudden onset of faint- 
heartedness that caused him to sink. (Matt. 14 : 28-31.) 
But it was Peter whom Jesus chose for his most intimate 
companionship, and together with James and John, as witness 
of his miracles, his transfiguration, and his passion. 

In the Apostolic Church. — The primacy of Peter 
stands out very clearly in the first chapters of the Acts 
of the Apostles. It was at his suggestion that another 
was chosen to fill the vacancy in the twelve. It was he who 
preached the sermon on the day of Pentecost which resulted 
in the addition of three thousand to the church. He was 
the spokesman in the healing of the lame man before the 
Sanhedrin, and in executing judgment on Ananias and Sap- 
phira. He was the leader in the work among the Samari- 
tans ; he made a tour through the cities, working miracles 
at Lydda and Joppa ; he first preached the gospel to a 
heathen, and baptized the first Gentile convert ; he turned 
the scale in favor of Paul at the Council of Jerusalem. 



174 THE DAWN OK CHRISTIANITY 



From this time on we are left largely to conjecture and to 
tradition for Peter' s history, yet we may draw the main out- 
lines of his subsequent career with considerable confidence 
in their accuracy. His name is especially associated in 
tradition with the churches of Asia Minor, especially with 
that of Antioch, and with the church at Rome. Of his work 
at Antioch we have testimony in the Acts, and later still in 
Gal. 2:12, where we learn of another instance in which the 
usually bold and resolute Peter became a vacillating and 
time-serving man. This lapse was particularly unfortunate, 
because, but for the superior courage and firmness of Paul, 
the Judaizers would have conquered, at least for the time. 
We learn from 1 Cor. 10 : 5 that Peter's missionary labors 
were continuous, and that his wife was still living and shar- 
ing his labors as late as A. D. 57. From 1 Pet. 5 : 13 we 
learn that he was for a time in Babylon, unless we take this 
name to be used symbolically for Rome, as in the Revela- 
tion, which seems quite improbable. This reference, and 
the opening verses of the epistle, strongly confirm the tradi- 
tion that the upbuilding of the Asiatic churches was due 
largely to the labors of Peter. 

The tradition of Peter's martyrdom at Rome is so early 
and unanimous that there is no good reason for doubting its 
truth. It probably occurred some time after the death of 
Paul, for had Peter been in Rome during Paul's lifetime it is 
inconceivable that no mention of the fact should have been 
found in the Pauline Epistles. The later tradition, of which 
the Roman Catholic church makes so much, that Peter was 
bishop of Rome for twenty-five years, is manifestly absurd, 
being quite irreconcilable with the New Testament. 



PETER THE ROCK 



175 



His Writing's. — Two letters in the New Testament pro- 
fess to be composed by Peter. An ancient tradition says 
that Peter did not write them personally, having an imper- 
fect knowledge of Greek, but employed an interpreter. If 
he employed different persons for the two letters, this might 
be allowed to explain the differences of the style that are 
quite obvious, from which some critics have drawn conclu- 
sions adverse to the genuineness of the second letter. The 
genuineness of the first has never been seriously questioned ; 
both the external and the internal evidence are strongly in 
its favor. It is exactly the practical, hortatory letter that we 
might expect from Peter, without much of the doctrinal ele- 
ment and lacking in logical sequence, but marked by direct- 
ness, simplicity, and fervor. The second letter is more 
rhetorical ; its correspondences with the Epistle of Jude are 
such as to suggest imitation of that letter ; and serious 
doubts of its genuineness existed in the early church. It 
was one of the last books to be admitted to the New Testa- 
ment canon. On the other hand, both its style and its 
contents are far above the later apocryphal writings, and the 
claim of Petrine authorship is clearly made. The church 
has been justified in holding that no mere negative testi- 
mony could offset these facts, especially when it is consid- 
ered that believers of all succeeding ages have found this 
epistle ' ' profitable for instruction which is in righteous- 
ness." 

Note. — The interpretation of Matt. 16 : 17-19 adopted above, is 
not that to which many Baptists are accustomed. The following 
from the volume on Matthew, by Dr. John A. Broadus, in "The 
American Commentary on the New Testament," may be found help- 



176 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



ful : " As Peter means rock, the natural interpretation is that * upon 
this rock ' means upon thee. No other explanation would probably 
at the present day be attemped, but for the fact that the obvious 
meaning has been abused by Papists to the support of their theory. 
But we must not allow the abuse of a truth to turn us away from its 
use ; nor must the convenience of religious controversy determine our 
interpretation of Scripture teaching. . . The Protestant reluctance to 
admit that the rock means Peter really plays into the hands of the 
Romish controversialists. It forms the impression that conceding that 
point would be conceding all that the Romanist claims. . . Now to 
take Peter as the rock is certainly the most natural and obvious mean- 
ing. And to make this the life or death issue is to give the Romanist 
a serious polemical advantage." And again : " However the rock 
may be understood, all must agree that our Lord gives the keys to 
Peter, i. the power of admitting (e. g., Acts 1 1 : 17), or denying 
admission {e. g., Acts 8 : 21 ), into the Messianic Kingdom. Yet it is 
not given to him in any exclusive sense, for the closely connected 
power of binding and loosing was not long after given to any church 
(18 : 18), and the included power of forgiving sins was given to the 
ten apostles and others (John 20 : 23)." With this view agree the 
majority of exegetes of the first rank, for example, Alford : " He was 
the first of those foundation stones (Rev. 21 : 14) on which the living 
temple of God was built. . . Let us keep to the plain, straightforward 
sense of Scripture, however that sense may have been misused by 
Rome." Bengel : "These two, irerpa and nerpos, rock and stone , 
stand for one thing, just as both are expressed in Syriac by one noun, 
Kepka. . . The church of Christ is certainly built on the apostles, 
both as the first believers and because it is through their labors the 
rest have been added ; and in this the prerogative of chief, in a cer- 
tain sense, was clearly Peter's, yet without destroying the equality of 
apostolic authority." Olshausen : " The symbolic name which the 
Saviour gave to Peter immediately after his first reception as his dis- 
ciple he here renews, with a definite explanation of its meaning. 
Peter is to be the rock of the edifice of the church. . . The church, 
as a spiritual structure, must rest naturally on a spiritual foundation : 
Peter, therefore, in his new spiritual character, appears as the sup- 



PETER THE ROCK 



177 



porter of Christ's great work among mankind. Jesus is himself the 
creator of the whole. Peter the first stone of the building." SchafT : 
" The phrase refers to Peter, but as a confessor, as in Christ, repre- 
senting the other apostles. This explains both the resemblance and 
the difference of the words : ' Petros ' and * petra ' ; it is on the whole 
preferable. From personal qualities he was the first among equals, 
and as he had represented the apostles in the confession, so now in 
the Lord's declaration. . . The other apostles are included, since 
what is addressed to Peter in the next verse is afterward repeated to 
all the apostles.' ' 

LITERATURE. 
Articles on Peter in the SchafT- Herzog Encyclopaedia, in the 
American Commentary, Meyer's Commentary, etc. The best mono- 
graph is Dr. William M. Taylor's "Peter, the Apostle" (Harpers). 
On the question whether Peter was ever at Rome, see Schaff, " His- 
tory of the Christian Church," vol. I., pp. 253-264. Dean How- 
son's "Horse Petrinse" is excellent. See also Neander, "Planting 
and Training," book IV., chap. 2. 



M 



XXVII. 



JAMES, THE LORD'S BROTHER. 

His Identity — Unbelief — Conversion. — Many have 
confused, and some have tried to identify, James the brother 
of the Lord (Matt. 13 : 56 ; Mark 6:3; Gal. 1 : 19) with 
James the son of Alpheus (Matt. 10 : 3, etc.). It seems 
evident, and the majority of scholars so hold, that they were 
two distinct persons. This identification would probably 
never have been attempted, but for the reluctance of some 
to acknowledge that Jesus had brothers in the flesh, not- 
withstanding the explicit statements in the New Testament 
that he had. This feeling, which ultimately produced the 
Mariolatry of the Roman church, rests on a distinctly un- 
scriptural conception of the dignity and sacredness of the 
institution of marriage. The identification of these two 
persons, indeed, is made seemingly impossible by the state- 
ment, subsequent to the calling of the twelve, that his 
brethren did not believe in Jesus (Matt. 3 : 56 ; John 7 : 5). 
This statement, entirely unqualified, excludes James the 
Lord's brother from the disciples of our Lord, as well as 
from the original apostles. It is by no means inexplicable 
that those who had grown up in the familiarity of home life 
with Jesus should have failed, at least for a time, to recog- 
nize his higher dignity — should have been unable to see in 
him the Son of God as well as the Son of Man. Whether 
all the other members of the family ever believed we are 
178 



JAMES, THE LORD'S BROTHER 1 79 



not told, but James certainly became a true-hearted believer, 
and so did his brother Jude. When this change occurred 
we can only conjecture ; we only know that, very early in 
the history of the church at Jerusalem, we find James hold- 
ing a commanding position such as can be reasonably ac- 
counted for only on the theory that he was a member of the 
church from the first. We are told by the Apostle Paul that 
Jesus appeared to James after his resurrection (1 Cor. 15 : 
5), and if he was not a believer before we may well sup- 
pose that this vision of the risen Lord made him one ; while 
if he had already believed, the vision confirmed his faith 
for the rest of his life. 

Bishop of Jerusalem. — James seems to have been an 
elder or bishop of the church at Jerusalem from an early 
date. In the preceding studies we have seen the evidence 
of this, and likewise have noted the weight that this position 
as well as his personal character gave to his counsels. He 
was not an apostle, properly speaking, though Paul uses lan- 
guage in two cases that seems so to class him (1 Cor. 15 : 7, 
where "all the apostles" is practically equivalent to "all 
the other apostles" ; and Gal. 1 : 19). This may mean, 
and probably does mean, only that the position of James 
had come to be of dignity and influence equal to that of an 
apostle. He does not claim this title for himself ; no New 
Testament writer explicitly gives it to him ; and instead of 
being sent forth as a witness (which is what "apostle" 
means), he remained in Jerusalem. But his work was as 
important and as fruitful of good as that of an apostle. 
Then, as now, God set some in the church to be evangelists 
and some to be pastors. 



l8o THE: DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



His Character. — James acquired the surname of ' 1 the 
Just," according to uniform tradition. This is confirmed 
by the reference of Josephus, who calls him "a most just 
(or righteous) man" (Antiq. 20, 3 : 1). This was probably 
used in the Jewish sense, "righteousness" consisting, in 
the estimation of a Jew, in strict observance of the Mosaic 
law. This accords with what we learn of James in the Acts 
of the Apostles. The compromise between the Judaizers 
and the Pauline party, suggested by him and adopted by 
the council of Jerusalem, indicates the extreme to which he 
was then willing to go in conceding even to Gentile Chris- 
tians freedom from the Mosaic requirements. James con- 
tinued to be the acknowledged leader of the Jewish Chris- 
tians up to the time of his death, though he is not to be 
charged with the excesses committed by his followers, any 
more than Paul was chargeable for the acts of the Pauline 
party at Corinth. There was something formal, stern, and 
unbending in his nature, yet he showed genuine fraternal 
feeling toward Paul, and no personal differences appear be- 
tween him and any other Christian leaders. He was at heart 
a Jew, but a Christian Jew, to the last. According to Jose- 
phus, who relates the story of his martyrdom, he was put to 
death about the year 63 A. d. 

His IJpistle. — The Epistle of James is directed to the 
Jews of the dispersion, and was written before the unbelief 
of the Jews had hardened into bitter hated of Christians 
and the Christian religion. Its dominant note is practical 
morality ; no other part of the New Testament of equal 
length contains so much instruction and exhortation con- 
cerning daily living. The tone is at times severe, almost 



JAMES, THE LORD'S BROTHER l8l 



bitter, in its rebuke of sin. Its denunciation of the rich, 
who used their wealth and power to oppress the poor, has 
never been surpassed in point and energy. ' ' Swift to hear, 
slow to speak, slow to wrath," are words that sum up fully 
half the contents of the letter. 

Salvation by Works. — The letter teaches a doctrine 
of salvation at first sight totally irreconcilable with that 
preached with so much energy by Paul. In the Pauline 
Epistles it is said again and again that by faith we are justi- 
fied. But James says explicitly, and confirms it by illustra- 
tions from the Old Testament, that ' ' by works a man is 
justified, and not only by faith." It was because of this 
apparent contradiction that Luther rejected the authority of 
this letter altogether, calling it contemptuously ' ' an epistle 
of straw." But the judgment of Christendom has pro- 
nounced Luther wrong in this hasty rejection, and wrong in 
the interpretation on which it was founded. The Pauline 
doctrine of justification by faith, and James' doctrine of 
justification by works, are contradictory only as the two 
opposite sides of a coin are contradictory. Of a curved 
line, one side is necessarily concave, and the other con- 
vex ; but the two sides do not contradict, they comple- 
ment each other. Paul's teaching and that of James are 
two hemispheres which together make the entire and perfect 
sphere of truth regarding salvation. Either, taken alone, is 
a half-truth, and may therefore easily become the most 
dangerous of lies. Justification by faith, taken alone, lends 
itself to the perversion known as antinomianism — that is, 
since the Christian, being justified by faith, is no longer 
under law but under grace, he is, therefore, above law; 



l8% THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



he is no longer under the restraint of law, but is become a 
law unto himself. Therefore, again, he is under no obliga- 
tion to keep the moral law. Frightful immoralities have 
been committed by men professing this belief. On the 
other hand, justification by works, taken alone, is easily 
perverted into formalism, the idea that the observance of a 
round of religious duties constitutes a religious life, and 
ensures salvation. This idea completely nullifies religion, 
as the history of the Church of Rome abundantly proves. 
We reach the truth only when we take both teachings to- 
gether. We are justified by faith, but only by a faith whose 
perfect flower and fruitage is a life of good works ; we are 
justified by works, but only by works whose roots are in a 
heart filled with faith and sanctified by the Holy Ghost. 
' 1 Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for 
righteousness," says the Old Testament Scripture. From 
this Paul draws the valid conclusion that the righteous shall 
live by faith, not by the law ; and James draws the equally 
valid conclusion that faith wrought with the works of Abra- 
ham, and by works was his faith made perfect. 

LITERATURE. 

See the introductions to the Epistle of James in all good commen- 
taries, especially the " American Commentary " and Meyer's " Com- 
mentary." Also articles on "James" and "James, Epistle of," in 
Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible," and the " Schaff-Herzog Ency- 
clopaedia" ; Neander, "Planting and Training," book IV., chap. I, 
also book III., chap. 4; Sechler's "Apostolic and Post- Apostolic 
Times," second part, chap. 2. 



XXVIII. 



CHRISTIAN LIFE IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE. 

We have thus far considered mainly the development of 
the church from the outside, studying events rather than life ; 
institutional Christianity rather than Christianity as a social 
force. We need also to look at the church from the inside, 
to consider what made possible the rapid spread of Chris- 
tianity, throughout the Roman Empire. As we saw in the 
Introduction, the conditions for its spread were favorable ; 
but an opportunity does not explain a result. 

Christianity a Transforming: Power. — What the re- 
ligion of Christ is to every believer, that it has been and is 
to society — a power to transform life. This element of 
Christianity early and deeply impressed the Roman world. 
Every heathen writer who mentions Christians during this 
early period, though he may ascribe to them (on hearsay 
evidence) incredible beliefs and practices, bears witness to 
their blameless lives. The literature and art of this time 
give testimony, all the more convincing because it is uncon- 
scious, to the wide-spread and appalling degradation of 
heathen society. Roman society was honeycombed with an 
immorality so hideous that even the scorching words of the 
Apostle Paul in his epistle to the Roman church but faintly 
represent the facts. Grecian society was as bad or worse. 
The heathen religions, as a sanction of or an incentive to 
practical righteousness, had utterly broken down. These 

183 



184 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



religions had a moral basis (though an imperfect- one), and 
heathen philosophers commended morality ; but Christianity 
first made a life of righteousness possible through a renewal 
of the heart, a cleansing of the soul, a quickening and en- 
lightenment of the conscience. The apostolic church grew 
with a rapidity so astonishing because the Christians of 
apostolic times were living epistles of Christ that the world 
did not fail to read and understand, because they showed 
the power of their religion to produce holy living. The 
tree was known by its fruits. 

Special Gifts in the Apostolic Church. — This growth 
was doubtless promoted by special gifts bestowed upon the 
apostolic church. To some of the apostles, possibly to all, 
the gift of miracles was granted. It is the fashion in our 
day to disparage the evidential value of miracles ; instead 
of receiving them as a witness to doctrine and official au- 
thority, we now rather demand that doctrine and official au- 
thority shall bear witness to the miracles. But the case was 
far otherwise in the apostles' day, and the miraculous gifts 
of the early church powerfully impressed the people to 
whom the gospel was first preached. There was also a 
special gift of prophecy, not in the narrow sense of predict- 
ing future events to which we now restrict the word, but the 
public exposition of God's truth. To prophesy, in the New 
Testament sense, is to speak for God. The gift of prophecy 
was not commonly the seer's power to foretell the future, 
but a special illumination of the Spirit by which all religious 
truth was more clearly and accurately discerned that it might 
be imparted to others. There was also the gift of tongues, 
which it is difficult for us to understand in any other way 



CHRISTIAN LIFE IN THE APOSTOUC AGE 1 85 



than the temporary endowment of certain believers with the 
power to preach the gospel in a language they did not com- 
monly understand. The gift was certainly not permanent ; 
it had its special use on such occasions as the day of Pente- 
cost, when multitudes speaking different languages were 
gathered, or in cities like Corinth, where a heterogeneous 
population dwelt. The end of these and all other special 
gifts to the apostolic church was ' ' the perfecting of the 
saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up 
of the body of Christ." 

Christianity and the Family. — The spread of Chris- 
tianity was greatly helped by its teaching and practice re- 
garding the family. In heathendom, the family idea had 
almost perished, and family life was becoming unknown. 
Rome began with an almost superstitious reverence for the 
family ; it ended with the family utterly destroyed. In the 
beginning the father had absolute power over the family — 
even the power of life and death. Women and children 
were chattels, except that the head of the family could not 
sell them. But during the apostolic age, partly by reforms 
in the law, and still more by demoralization of the people, 
the family lost this coherence. Divorce was as easy as 
marriage, and as common ; and faithfulness to the marriage 
vow, even while marriage endured, was the exception. The 
Christian religion offered to heathendom both the theory and 
the fact of a pure family life. It founded the family on the 
life longunion of husband and wife, on their mutual affec- 
tion, forbearance, and faithfulness. It made woman not 
man's slave, or his toy, or his household drudge, but his 
complement, his other self. It followed of necessity that 



1 86 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 

the status of woman should be elevated wherever Chris- 
tianity prevailed. In the same way that woman was ele- 
vated the bonds of the slave were removed. The New 
Testament does not directly attack slavery, it does not 
directly assert the equality of woman ; it establishes a family 
life that makes equally impossible the subjection of woman 
and the continuance of slavery. In Christ there is neither 
male nor female, neither bond nor free, but a new creation. 
This principle has only to be given time to work itself out 
in any nation, and the reorganization of the social order is 
certain. 

The Unity of Christians.— The growth of the church 
was greatly promoted by its substantial unity. The unity 
was not perfect, — nothing is ever perfect in this world, — but 
it was sufficiently marked to make a profound impression 
upon the heathen world. It is one of the things most em- 
phasized in the New Testament. At the beginning it is 
especially recorded that * ' the multitude of them that believed 
were of one heart and soul." Christians were earnestly 
exhorted to give "diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit 
in the bond of peace." They were noted for their care of 
the poor among them. The Apostle Paul rebukes nothing 
with more severity — not even gross immorality — than the 
bickerings and quarrelings among Christians. It is probable 
that the outside world knew little of these ; certainly heathen- 
dom was spared the sight of a multitude of warring sects, 
each apparently more zealous in pulling down its neighbor 
than in building up the kingdom of God. Nevertheless we 
should err if we pictured to ourselves the apostolic times as 
a sort of "golden age" of the church, the glories of which 



CHRISTIAN LIFE IN THE APOSTOUC AGE 187 



we may never hope to see return. The letters to the seven 
churches of Asia show that the churches of our time had 
antitypes in the days of the apostles. 

Christian Worship. — The simplicity of Christian wor- 
ship, as clearly shown in the New Testament, was another 
element of power in the early church. All the heathen re- 
ligions were religions of forms, of ceremonies, of elaborate 
ritual ; the religion of Christ exalted the spiritual element. 
As a man became a Christian only by being born again of 
the Spirit, so he continued a Christian only by having his 
new life nourished and strengthened by the same Spirit. 
Public worship consisted, in the apostolic churches, of 
prayer, the singing of psalms and hymns, the reading of 
the Scriptures, and the expounding of what was read. The 
use of liturgical prayers was a feature of the Jewish syna- 
gogue, and doubtless this custom was soon adapted to the 
worship of the Judaeo-Christians. There are many rhyth- 
mical passages in the apostolic writings, which seem to have 
been taken from early liturgical compositions. But what- 
ever use was made of written prayers or brief Confessions 
of Faith, there is no trace in the New Testament or in the 
earlier post-apostolic writers of a fixed liturgy. All was 
flexible and spontaneous. The spiritual life and emotion of 
Christians expressed itself naturally and in varied forms, so 
much so that the very verge of disorder was sometimes 
reached. The warnings of Paul to the church of Corinth 
would have been superfluous, had anything like a modern 
liturgy been in use. Indeed, what we gather from the letters 
to this church warrants the conclusion that at Corinth, at 
least, the meetings for public worship partook more of the 



l88 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



nature of our prayer and conference meetings than of our 
more formal Sunday services. How far this was the rule 
throughout the churches of the apostolic age may, of course, 
be considered an open question. 

LITERATURE. 
Very valuable are chap. 8 and 9 of SchafTs " History of the Chris- 
tian Church," vol. I. See Stalker, chap. 8, "A Picture of a Pauline 
Church," and review chap. 13 of Conybeare and Howson. See also 
Hurst's "Short History of the Christian Church," p. 5, and chap. 6 
and 7; Fisher's "History of the Christian Church," pp. 34-44; 
Neander's " Planting and Training," book III., chap. 5 ; and " His- 
tory of the Christian Church," vol. I., pp. 68-79. 



XXIX. 



CHRISTIANITY AT THE END OF THE APOSTOLIC ERA. 

The If&st Thirty Years. — Written records of the lat- 
ter part of the first century are very scanty. We can infer 
what must have been the course of events only from what 
we find in existence early in the second century. The de- 
struction of Jerusalem powerfully promoted the growth of 
the Christian churches. That catastrophe brought to a close 
the great controversy with the Judaizers that was so trouble- 
some, so divisive up to that time. With the end of the 
temple worship and the dispersion of the Jews, the main 
support of the Judaso-Christians was gone ; their influence 
was broken and they gradually disappeared as a party from 
the church. Traces of Jewish influence can be found in the 
literature of the second century, but no traces of a Jewish 
party in the Christian churches. The dispersion of Chris- 
tians that followed the destruction of Jerusalem was favor- 
able to a more rapid spread of their doctrines. The church 
at Jerusalem and its bishop had a primacy of influence 
among the apostolic churches that might have developed in 
no long time into such a primacy as the Church of Rome 
gained some centuries later. 

Progress Made by Christianity. — By the end of the 
first century, the gospel had been preached throughout the 
Roman Empire. Several of the apostles, notably Peter and 
John, were as active, and apparently as successful, in plant- 

189 



1 90 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 

ing churches in Asia as Paul was in planting churches in 
Europe. If we may attach any weight whatever to tradition, 
we may conclude from its vague reports that all of the 
twelve, as well as the New Testament writers who w r ere not 
apostles, were diligent preachers of the gospel until death 
ended their labors. Andrew is said to have preached in 
Scythia, Thomas to have evangelized Parthia, Mark to have 
founded the church in Alexandria ; and while these may be 
the inventions of a later time, rather than lingering echoes 
of the truth, the invention of these details testifies to a gen- 
eral belief in the church in the abounding and fruitful labors 
of all the apostles. Enough regarding those labors is recorded 
for our instruction and edification ; more full records might 
have gratified our curiosity or our craving for complete 
knowledge, but could hardly have made more impressive 
the lessons that the Holy Spirit wished to teach the Christians 
of all ages. It has been estimated— but, of course, it is pure 
guess-work — that by the end of this century there were not 
fewer than one hundred thousand Christians in the Roman 
Empire. What we know certainly is that there were Chris- 
tian churches in nearly every city. The churches of Antioch, 
of Ephesus, of Alexandria, of Corinth, of Rome, were al- 
ready so strong as to excite jealousy and bitter persecution. 
The letters to the seven churches in the opening chapters of 
the Revelation name other churches that, in Asia at least, 
were chief in importance and influence. 

A parallel has sometimes been drawn between the pro- 
gress of Christianity in the Roman Empire during this first 
century and the progress of modern Christian missions 
among the heathen nations during the last hundred years. 



CHRISTIANITY AT END OF APOSTOLIC ERA 191 



It is little more than a century since the Christian churches 
undertook in real earnest the conquest of the world for 
Christ. In that time they have evangelized a vastly greater 
territory, and have probably planted more churches and 
gained more converts in heathendom than were to be found 
in the year a. d. 100 in the Roman Empire. Every sign 
points toward the completion of the parallel — that in the two 
centuries to come so great progress will be made that Chris- 
tianity will become the religion of the world, at least as 
truly as it was the religion of the Roman Empire under Con- 
stantine. But this is prophecy, not history. 

Beginnings of Corruption. — We can see in the New 
Testament evidences that corruption was appearing in doc- 
trine, in life, and in polity — corruption that became very 
evident early in the second century, and that developed by 
regular gradations into the system of doctrine and polity 
now known to us as the Roman Catholic church. Nearly 
every New Testament epistle contains warnings against false 
teachers and false teachings. If there was a Judaizing party 
in the apostolic church, there was also a paganizing party. 
Traces of its influence may be found in several of Paul's 
epistles, teachings such as afterward developed into the dan- 
gerous heresy of Gnosticism, the first attempt to restate 
Christian truth under the forms of a pagan philosophy. It 
was the chief error of this first great heresy that it practically 
denied the union of the human and the divine in Christ by 
eliminating the human. Christ was divine, being an emana- 
tion from God ; but his human body was a phantasm, an 
illusion of the senses, and not a reality. 

We see traces of sacramentalism in the New Testament. 



192 THE; DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



Whatever may have been the " baptism for the dead," to 
which Paul refers (by no means with approval, but merely 
as an argument ad kominem), it appears to have had in it 
an element of superstitious reverence for the rite, a latent 
belief in its efficacy to do something. In the first half of the 
second century this idea became general, and developed 
into the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. As baptism 
came to be considered indispensable to salvation, it followed 
that when it could not be properly administered, some sem- 
blance of it was practised ; hence, first the pouring of water 
and then the sprinkling of it upon the head was accepted as 
baptism. The same idea of baptismal salvation led parents, 
anxious for the salvation of their children, to have them bap- 
tized. These corruptions of the ordinance took several cen- 
turies to become fully established in the church, but the 
drift in that direction began soon after the death of the last 
apostle, if it had not manifested itself before his death. 

Corruption of the church polity had also begun. A plu- 
rality of elders or bishops was general in the apostolic 
churches, and at first all the bishops of a church were on a 
footing of absolute equality. The necessity, or at least con- 
venience, of having an acknowledged head caused one of 
them after a time to be elected, or tacitly regarded, as the 
president, the bishop par excellence of the church. The 
episcopate in no long time came to be an office separate from 
and higher than the presbytery, though it was not regarded 
as a separate order in the ministry. That idea, as well as 
the extension of the bishop's authority from a single church 
to a diocese, came considerably later. We find the local 
episcopate so firmly established early in the second century 



CHRISTIANITY AT END OF APOSTOLIC ERA 193 



as to compel the conclusion that the process began in the 
closing years of the first century. 

Christianity differed and still differs from all other reli- 
gions in its spiritual nature. It professes to accomplish 
man's salvation, not by rites and ceremonies, but by a 
spiritual process, which begins with a regeneration through 
faith and ends in the complete transformation of the soul. 
But mankind has a tendency, so innate and overmastering, 
to rely on the outward form of godliness, to seek salvation 
through rites, to buy its way or work its way into the king- 
dom of heaven, that, in spite of the clearest teachings of the 
New Testament, the early church substituted a religion of 
formalism for a religion of the Spirit. Hardly had the 
apostles left the churches they had founded, when the de- 
generating process began, and all the fervid exhortations 
and repeated warnings of Paul and his fellow-apostles could 
do no more than retard the process. There were always 
some in the church who had vision of the truth, and who 
protested against its perversion, but they were overborne by 
numbers and were either silenced or found a martyr's 
grave. 



X 



XXX. 



DISTINCTIVE NEW TESTAMENT TEACHINGS. 

We have now to sum up the results of our study of the 
apostolic age, its life, and its literature. Apart from the 
theological and ethical systems continued in or deducible 
from the New Testament, what are the distinctive principles 
therein taught ? What is, in its essence, in its fundamental 
truths, in its characteristic structure, in its scriptural pattern, 
a church of Jesus Christ ? 

A Spiritual Body. — It is an assemblage of those whose 
lives witness that they have been regenerated by the Spirit 
of God. It exalts the spiritual over the formal. The break 
between Judaism and Christianity was complete. Every 
Jew was such by birth according to the flesh ; he was an in- 
heritor of the promise because he was in the line of descent 
from Abraham. Every Christian must be such by virtue of 
his personal relation to Jesus Christ. A child was made a 
Jew when he was circumcised on the eighth day according 
to the commandment ; nobody can be made a Christian — -he 
must become a Christian by personally accepting Jesus as 
his Saviour and Lord. A Jew supposed that he inherited 
the promises by faithful observance of the law of Moses ; 
but no Christian has an excuse for deluding himself into the 
notion that he may find salvation in any forms, ceremonies, 
or works. He may look to be justified freely by the grace 
194 



DISTINCTIVE NEW TESTAMENT TEACHINGS 195 



of God through faith in Jesus Christ, and to be sanctified by 
the Spirit of God ; and on no other condition do the Script- 
ures promise him salvation. 

Religion being thus a matter between each soul and God, 
there is no room for priestly mediation. Every believer is a 
priest, Christ is our great High Priest, but for priesthood in 
the usual sense there is no place in the Christian church. 
Every soul may freely approach the throne of grace without 
any human intercessor or go-between. The church has 
ministers, but no priests. The ministry is not a separate 
order or class in the church, but an office with special func- 
tions, none of which, however, partake of a sacerdotal 
character. 

Religion being thus sacredly personal, a direct relation 
between each soul and God/ it must of necessity be a volun- 
tary relation on man's part. Nobody can be coerced into 
the kingdom of God. Nobody can be compelled to become 
a Christian. It follows that every man's relation to God is 
a thing to be settled between him and God alone, without 
other intervention. This involves the inalienable right of 
every man to decide for himself how he shall worship and 
serve God, or whether he shall worship or serve God at all ; 
and no other human being has any right whatsoever to force 
his decision. This is what is meant by "soul liberty" — a 
corollary from the fundamental principles of Christ's gospel 
that the world was eighteen centuries in drawing, and has 
as yet only half learned. , 

Founded on Scripture. — Chronologically the church 
preceded the New Testament ; logically the New Testament 
preceded the church. For the church professes to be 



I96 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



founded on the teachings of Christ, to be subject to his 
authority in all things. It takes him as its only lawgiver 
and professes loyal obedience to his lightest command. 
The New Testament professes to be nothing less, nothing 
more, than the teachings of Christ — the Gospels his personal 
teachings while in the flesh, the Acts and Epistles his per- 
sonal teachings through his Spirit. Theologians have 
always differed about the doctrine of inspiration ; neither its 
extent nor its method has ever been so defined as to secure 
the general assent of Christian believers. What is beyond 
question is that the Scriptures make claim to have been 
written in virtue of a special guidance of the writers' minds 
by the Spirit of God, and for that reason to be the sole, the 
sufficient, the authoritative rule of faith and practice for 
every Christian believer. Whether the will of Christ is 
made known in these Scriptures by precept or by example, 
if only it is clearly made known, it is binding on the conscience 
of every follower of him. That the Old Testament Script- 
ures were received and treated as authoritative by Jesus and 
his followers we have convincing evidence in the New Tes- 
tament ; that the New Testament writings were at once 
received as of equal, and even superior authority by all be- 
lievers, the early Christian literature abundantly testifies. 
The written word thus became, and has ever since continued 
to be, the sole standard of authority among the churches of 
Christ, not to be modified in any particular, still less to be 
set aside by any tradition, custom, or human authority. 
This is the fundamental principle of Baptists, because it is 
the fundamental law of the New Testament — obedience in 
all things to Christ, as his will is made known to his fol- 



DISTINCTIVE NEW TESTAMENT TEACHINGS 197 



lowers in his written word, interpreted to the heart of each 
honest believer by the Holy Spirit. No scholar, no church 
court, can usurp this right and duty of private interpreta- 
tion. 

Its Simplicity of Form. — A New Testament church 
has but two ordinances, baptism and the Lord's Supper, that 
serve as bonds of union between believers by uniting them 
to one Lord. Baptism, symbolizing the new birth, — the 
death of the believer to sin, and his rising to newness of 
life, — and a witness as well to the death, burial, and resur- 
rection of Christ, from its very nature is to be administered 
but once, and that at the beginning of the Christian life. 
Its significance is quite lost if administered to any but a be- 
liever, or if anything but an immersion in water is accepted 
as a substitute. Some baptize to make men Christians ; the 
New Testament authorizes the baptism of those only who 
are Christians. The Lord's Supper, from its very nature, is 
an ordinance to be often observed, since it is at once a me- 
morial of our Lord' s death, a symbol of the believers' spiritual 
union with Christ, and a testimony that Christ's followers 
are of one mind, one spirit. As union with Christ and 
Christian fellowship necessarily follow the new birth, a natu- 
ral sequence of the two ordinances is thus established by 
their significance. This natural sequence is also the actual 
sequence in the New Testament, which by example — not by 
definite precept — limits the observance of the supper to such 
as have believed and been baptized. 

The organization of the New Testament churches was 
simplicity itself. But two offices are found in it, the pastorate 
and the diaconate. The pastor is varyingly called, as his 



198 THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



functions are differently looked at, ' ' bishop ' ' (eftiscoftos), 
and " elder" {ftresbyteros). In many churches there was a 
plurality of elders, one of whom may have been chief by 
superiority of age, wisdom, or power of leadership, but not 
of official rank. Neither ' • bishop ' ' nor deacon was re- 
garded (nor regarded himself) as belonging to a separate 
class or order; the distinction between " clergy" and 
' * laity ' ' is wholly unknown to New Testament times, and 
belongs to a period of degeneracy and corruption. 

This simplicity of organization is not to be regarded as in 
any sense a bar to further organization. A New Testament 
church is an organism, not a machine. As an organism it 
has the power of self-adjustment to its environment ; and 
there is no limit to this self-adjustment save its fundamental 
constitution. There is a specializing of functions in the 
church as in every organism — an assigning of members to 
their appropriate work under competent supervision. The 
one test of organizations within the church is : Are these 
different forms of activity organic parts of the church ? Do 
they exist by the authority of the church as a whole, in strict 
subordination and unswerving loyalty to the church ? If 
they are, or are suffered to become separate entities, exist- 
ing without authority of the church, and more or less in 
subordinate, jealous, antagonistic, and disloyal, then they are 
unscriptural and cannot be too soon abolished. 

Its Independence. — Each New Testament church was 
independent of all external authority ; it acknowledged but 
one lawgiver and head, the Lord Jesus Christ, and to him 
alone was it responsible. But the New Testament churches 
were not independent of external obligations. They owed 



DISTINCTIVE NEW TESTAMENT TEACHINGS 1 99 



to their fellow-Christians, both as individuals and as churches, 
whatever of loving service it was in their power to render. 
They were bound to give counsel and help to sister churches 
that had need of either, and frequent records in the New 
Testament show that this obligation was both acknowledged 
and fulfilled. The churches of Christ, like the individual 
believers of whom they are composed, are both independent 
and interdependent. It is not safe to push either idea to an 
extreme. Church independence is a phrase that is too often 
used to cloak injustice, willfulness, and imprudence ; while 
the idea of interdependence might be so extended — has been 
so extended among Baptists — as to produce a sort of presby- 
terial control of a local church by other bodies. Both ideas 
need to be held in firm and just equipoise if we would not 
depart dangerously from the scriptural idea of a church. 

It is this idea of mutual interdependence from which have 
proceeded those voluntary affiliations of the churches that 
constitute the marked feature of modern denominational life. 
The first step was the formation of local Associations of the 
churches, for the promotion of their piety and for common 
missionary effort. Not long after followed the organization 
of great missionary societies for the evangelization of con- 
tinents ; and missionary organizations along State lines came 
last of all. The scriptural test of the legitimacy of all such 
organizations is : Are they all voluntary associations, with 
only advisory and executive functions, assuming no legis- 
lative power over the local churches ? If so, they are 
natural and healthful embodiments of the New Testament 
spirit, a wise exercise of Christian liberty. But if they for- 
get that they are but servants of the churches, and aspire 



200 THK DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY 



to be masters, if they assume legislative and judicial func- 
tions, they are unscriptural and deserve to be abolished. 

Its Perpetuity. — " The gates of hades shall not prevail 
against it, ' ' said our Lord. Not only does the church exist 
in obedience to Christ, but it is promised a perpetual exist- 
ence. Its enemies may seem at times, and for a time, to 
have vanquished it ; the continuity of its life may not be 
visible to the world at large — the stream may flow under- 
ground for a time — but it shall continue, and in God's good 
time shall again issue into the light of day. God's truth 
never has lacked, never shall lack, witnesses. And though 
they may again be few, as they have been few in past ages, 
theirs is the inheritance of the future. For heaven and 
earth may pass away, but not one jot or tittle of Christ's 
word, till all shall be fulfilled. 



APPENDIX A 



In connection with the studies now published in this volume, there 
was suggested a simultaneous course of lectures that would elucidate 
and illustrate topics that could only be touched upon in the studies 
themselves. The suggestions were very generally adopted, and every- 
where the lectures were found to be exceedingly helpful. They were 
especially successful in securing the interest and co-operation in the 
Christian Culture Courses work of older Christians who couM not 
undertake the course. They were equally effective in keeping alive 
the interest of those who were actually pursuing the courses, and from 
time to time giving them a fresh draught of enthusiasm. In many 
cities a monthly rally or " symposium" was held, the chief feature of 
which was a lecture on the subject for the month by a leading pastor 
or layman. The syllabus of these suggested lectures is added to this 
volume, in the hope that as the studies are hereafter used by the young 
people, these may be found also to have a continued value. Where 
individuals, and not classes, pursue the studies, the syllabus will be 
found useful as a suggestion of additional lines of reading and study, 
and as furnishing themes for essays and other original work. 

I. The Fullness of the Times; or, The Preparation of the World for 
the Spread of the Gospel. 

1. A time of preparation necessary ; in the earlier ages of the world the gospel 

would not have had a hearing, or would have remained the religion of a 
nation. 

2. The nature of this preparation. 

(a) A progressive revelation through the Old Testament Scriptures, and 

through the types of Judaism, of God's will. 
(&) A chosen people prepared, coming gradually to a clear consciousness of 

the one God. 

20 1 



202 



APPENDIX A 



(c) Spread of the Greek civilization and language. 

(d) Growth of the Roman power, with easy intercourse between ail nations, 

peace, and protection of law. 

(e) The religious unrest of the world. 

Materials for the discussion of the points will be found in Fisher's 
" History of the Christian Church," chap. I, and Edersheim's " Life 
of Jesus, the Messiah," chap. I. 

II. The Schools of the Prophets; or, Theological Education Among 

the Jews. 

1. Jewish devotion to education (Geikie, "Life of Christ," i : 171-175). 

2. The schools of the synagogues (Conybeare and Howson, pp. 64, 65). 

3. The rabbinical schools. 

{a) Origin— 1 Sam. 19 : 19, 20; 2 Kings 2:3; 6:1; 4 : 38 (Smith's " Bible 
Dictionary," art. " Prophet.") 

(b) Rabbis and their methods (Farrar, "Life of St. Paul," chap. 3; Cony- 
beare and Howson, pp. 61-64). 

III. Sanhedrin and Synagogue; or, The Influence of Judaism on 

Christianity. 

1. Sanhedrin. 

(a) Origin and composition. 

(b) Influence on church councils. 

(c) Influence in destruction of church independence and the development of 

a hierarchy. 

2. Synagogue. 

(a) The local organization of Jews into congrsgations. 

(b) Place of meeting ; trace resemblances to Christian churches. 

(c) Officers. 

(d) Worship. 

Ample materials for the discussion of this subject will be found in 
the articles on "Sanhedrin" and "Synagogue" in Smith's " Bible 
Dictionary." From this (c) under Sanhedrin must be excepted; the 
lecturer will be compelled to work this out for himself from such hints 
as he can glean from Schaff, and other church historians. 

IV. Our New Testament; How It Grew and How It was Completed. 

No analysis is necessary to this theme. Materials may be found in 
any history of the Canon (as Westcott's), or in articles on the Canon 
in any encyclopaedia of religious knowledge, for a popular summary 
of this subject. 



APPENDIX A 



203 



V. The Teachings of Paul, and Their Effect on Christian Thought 

in All Ages. 

1. The teachings of Paul. Give a brief but clear outline of the following prin- 

cipal points : 

(a) God's eternal purpose. 

(b) Universal sinfulness. 

(c) Person and work of Christ — atonement. 

((f) Redemption, including (1) Regeneration, (2) Justification, (3) Sanctifica- 
tion. 

2. Their effect on Christian thought. 

(a) Augustine and his school. 

(b) Calvin and his theology. 

(<:) Luther and his doctrine of justification by faith. 

Materials for the first half of the lecture will be found in abundance 
in Weiss' " Biblical Theology of the New Testament," vol. I., p. 
221, seq. For the second division materials maybe found in Fisher's 
" History of the Reformation,' ' and in encyclopaedia articles on Au- 
gustine, Calvin, and Luther. 

VI. Out of the Past ; the Testimony of Art and Archeology to 

Christianity. 

Purpose of early Christian art ; religious rather than aesthetic. 
Value of this testimony to the historic character of Christianity. 

1. Pictorial testimonies. 

(a) Paintings and carvings, in catacombs and elsewhere. 

(b) Miniatures, mosaics, glass. 

2. Scope of their evidence. 

(a) As to historic events ; ascension, resurrection, doings of the apostles, etc. 

(b) As to ordinances and customs (1) baptism, (2) Lord's Supper. 
(<:) As tc persons — ancient portraits of apostles. 

3 Architecture's testimony. 

(a) Churches — The Roman basilica and its influence on early church archi- 

tecture. 

(b) Baptisteries ; Ravenna, St. John Lateran, etc. 

4. The testimonies of Archaeology. 

Emblems : Cross, crucifix. Ecclesiastical objects, chalice, etc. 

5. Representations of special interest. 

Raphael's cartoons, especially the Death of Ananias, Stoning of Stephen, 

Paul at Lystra, Paul Preaching at Athens. 
Rubens : The Four Evangelists. 

Salvator Rosa : Philip baptizing the Eunuch (an illustration of how it was 
not done). 



204 APPENDIX A 

Rembrandt's Peter and John at the Temple Gate, and the stoning of 

Stephen (both etched by himself; many copies). 
Filippino Lippi : Peter and Paul before Nero. 

The difficulty has been to select from the enormous mass of material 
a few examples that are most accessible. Bennett's " Christian 
Archaeology" (Phillips and Hunt) contains much material on nearly 
every point covered. Additional materials may be found in Smith's 
" Dictionary of Christian Antiquities." 



APPENDIX B 



HOUSEHOLD BAPTISMS 

The question raised by the baptism of Lydia and her household is 
a crucial one, for on its answer turns the argument for infant baptism 
in the apostolic times. There is no definite precept commanding the 
baptism of infants ; if infant baptism cannot be found here, and in the 
other instances of household baptisms recorded, it can ot be found 
anywhere in the New Testament. The following testimonies, all 
from Pedobaptist scholars of high rank, will be found of great value 
in reaching a decision of this question : 

Beet : It must be at once admitted that the New Testament con- 
tains no clear proof that infants were baptized in the days of the apos- 
tles. It is true that Paul baptized the houses of Stephanas and of 
Lydia, and the Philippian jailer, and all who belonged to him (i Cor. 
I : 16; Acts 1 6 : 15, 33). But this mention of baptized households 
by no means proves or suggests that he baptized infants. From these 
passages, therefore, we can draw no inference whether or not infants 
were baptized in the apostolic churches. — " Christian Baptism,' 5 pp. 
28, 29. 

Dollinger : There is no proof or hint in the New Testament 
that the apostles baptized infants, or ordered them to be baptized. 
When the baptism of whole households is spoken of, it is left doubt- 
ful whether they contained little children, and whether, if so, these 
also were baptized. — " First Age of Christ and the Church," vol. II., 
p. 184. 

Fisher : Whether infants were baptized in the apostolic age, or 
exactly when the custom arose of administering this rite to them, is a 
controverted question on which the New Testament writings furnish 
no direct information. The mention of the baptism of households is 
not entirely conclusive, since we are not certain that infants were 
contained in them ; and, besides, if it were known that infants were 
not baptized, they would be understood to be excepted in a general 
statement of this sort respecting a household. — " Beginnings of 
Christianity," p. 565. 

205 



2o6 



APPENDIX B 



Pressense : Christian baptism is not to be received, any more 
than faith, by inheritance. This is the great reason why we cannot 
believe that it was administered in the apostolic age to little children. 
No positive fact sanctioning the practice can be adduced from the 
New Testament ; the historical proofs alleged are in no way conclu- 
sive. There is only one case affording any room for doubt [Lydia and 
her household], and those who attach more importance to the general 
spirit of the new covenant than to an isolated text, unhesitatingly 
admit that it is of no foice.-- " Early Years of Christianity," p. 337. 

Blunt : It is argued that as the household of Lydia and the 
jailer were baptized, there were probably infants among them ; but, 
admitting this probability, there is no proof that the apostle baptized 
them. We cannot fairly prove the apostolic origin of infant baptism 
by assuming the existence of the usage itself. . . The evidence on 
this subject from Scripture amounts to this, that we only read of bap- 
tism after a profession of faith and repentance. This by no means, 
it is true, excludes the possibility of the existence at the same time of 
infant baptism without such conditions; but the fact must not be 
assumed without evidence, and the utter want of proof from Holy 
Scripture obviously leads to a different conclusion. — " Dictionary of 
Doctrinal and Historical Theology,' 7 article " Infant Baptism," pp. 
343,344. 

Olshausen : For infant baptism nothing is to be deduced from 
the word oikos [household], for the adult members of the family, or 
the slaves likewise, might be signified. — "Commentary," on 1 Cor. 
I : 16. 

Neander : We cannot infer the existence of infant baptism from 
the instance of the baptism of whole families, for the passage in 
I Cor. 16 : 15, shows the fallacy of such a conclusion, as from that it 
appears that the whole family of Stephanas, who were baptized by 
Paul, consisted of adults. — " Planting and Training," vol. I., p. 163. 

The utmost, therefore, that any candid Pedobaptist claims is, a fair 
probability that infant children were found in at least one of the 
households mentioned as having been baptized. The experience of 
present-day Baptists in the matter of household baptisms may there- 
fore be cited as of some weight in deciding this question of proba- 
bility. The following article, printed in the editorial columns of 
" The Examiner," for May 15, 1884, shows what this experience is: 

Some weeks ago " The Examiner " discussed the household bap- 
tisms mentioned in the New Testament, with special reference to the 
probability of their including any infant children. It is urged by 
many Pedobaptists that in the households of Lydia, the Philippian 



APPENDIX B 



jailer, and Stephanas — or at least in some one of the three — there were 
in all probability infant children. We then showed that the explicit 
statements of Scripture exclude this supposition in the first two cases, 
and in the third afford no plausible ground for it. We then asked 
the pastors who read " The Examiner,' ' to give us their personal 
experience in this matter of household baptisms, believing that that 
experience would show such baptisms to be very common. If they 
are common, of course all foundation for the argument, based upon 
the probability that there were infant children in those three house- 
holds, falls to the ground. 

We have received a large number of responses, though not so 
many as we expected. A few of the pastors did not clearly under- 
stand what was asked, and tell us the number of baptized households 
in their churches ; but their letters indicate that the members were not 
all baptized at one time, hence their facts are of no use to us. The 
contents of the other letters we summarize as briefly as possible. 

Rev. H. W. Read, for many years an evangelist, says that he has 
baptized several scores of entire households — in one revival fifteen, 
and in another about a dozen. Rev. G. C. Baldwin, D. D., of Troy, 
has baptized twenty entire households, and Rev. G. B. Burnside, of 
.buffalo, reports nineteen. Rev. A. Stewart, for many years a mission- 
ary in Ontario, has baptized sixteen households, three of them at the 
same time and place. Rev. C. E. W. Dobbs, d. d., of Madison, 
Ind., in a ministry of twenty-four years has baptized eleven house- 
holds, the youngest person in them being ten years old. Rev. F. M. 
Barbour, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., baptized nine households during ten 
years. Rev. A. J. Barrett, of Rochester, N. Y., has baptized six 
households containing twenty persons, in a ministry of eight years. 
Rev. George Brewer, of Knoxville, Tenn., Rev. Allen E. Light, of 
the First Kent Church, N. Y., and Rev. W. C. McAllister, of Pitts- 
burgh, N. Y., have each baptized four households. Rev. R. H. 
Colby, of Chittenango, N. Y., has also baptized four households, two 
of them at a time. In a revival at Newfane, N. Y., Rev. E. J. Scott 
baptized an entire household three Sundays in succession. Rev. H. 
M. Richardson, of Maryville, Miss., reports the baptism of four house- 
holds, containing nineteen persons. Rev. G. F. McNair, of West 
Creek, N. J., has baptized several households consisting of husband 
and wife, none of them containing any children at the time. Rev. 
Tbomis Rogers, D. D., of Elbridge, N. Y., reports two entire house- 
holds baptized by him and two other cases where the baptisms of the 
members of the households followed each other at very short intervals 
of time Rev. G. M. Hodge, of Janesville, Wis., reports " several " 
cases during his ministry. 

Quite a number of pastors report baptisms of one or two households 
that are specially interesting as containing an unusual number of 



208 



APPENDIX B 



adults. Rev. B. G. Manard, of Plattsburg, Miss., a household of six ; 
Rev. Dexter P. Smith, of Iowa City, two households, one of them 
containing six adults — grandmother, parents, and children ; Rev. 
Charles T. Herndon, of Leesburg, Va., two households, one of seven 
persons, and all the five children under fifteen years of age ; Rev. 
Thomas Cruddington, of Cottage City, Mass., a family of five, the 
youngest eighteen years of age ; Rev. A. R. Newton, of Carthage, 
111., a family of five ; Rev. E. D. Phillips, of Hydeville, Vt, a family 
of six, the oldest fifty-one, the youngest eleven years. 

Rev. L. A. Crandall, of Owego, N. Y., and Rev. C. A. Stone, of 
Afton, N. Y., have each baptized two households. The following 
report one household each : Rev. J. H. Hall, Newman, Ga. ; Rev. 
J. G. Ward, Andover, Conn. ; Rev. J. B. Hutton, Albion, Neb. ; Rev. 
J. H. Dudley, Niles, Mich. 

In the above lists we have given only households actually baptized 
by the writers : A number of these pastors have added that many 
other cases had come under their observation, or had been reported to 
them by persons of unquestioned accuracy. Two laymen also send 
us letters in which they report several cases of household baptisms 
that they had witnessed. From all of these facts, which are easily 
verifiable, but one conclusion can be drawn, which is, that the bap- 
tism of entire households at one place an 1 time is a very common 
thing in our Baptist churches, and of course none of these households 
contain a child too young to believe in Christ and to be baptized on 
the profession of his personal faith. If this is so, what possible 
ground can there be for arguing that it is probable that the three 
households mentioned in the New Testament contained infant chil- 
dren ? 



